


Besessenheit

by ladyshadowdrake



Category: Grimm (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Nick, BAMF Sean, Canon Appropriate Violence, Case Fic, F/M, M/M, Monroe is adorable, Novel Length, Sean is king of Portland, Some darkness, Some horror/thriller, and still some humor, and talks a lot, making things up about creature politics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2018-03-02 08:29:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 81,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2806076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyshadowdrake/pseuds/ladyshadowdrake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marie asked him to leave Juliette to keep her safe, but also because it's not fair to make her into a shield. This one decision changes everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Tender Young Creature

**Author's Note:**

> This story is currently at about 100,000 words and not quite complete. Hopefully I'll have it finished before I catch up to myself on the posting curve. Because of this, I will be posting this story one chapter a week until complete or I catch up to myself. 
> 
> Additional tags may be added later. 
> 
> This first chapter follows very closely to the first episode of the television show, so if you recognize lines of dialogue, that is because I was watching the episode while I wrote it.

Chapter One:

A Tender Young Creature

 

            Nick drew a deep breath as he came up to the door. He paused for a moment and put a hand in his pocket to explore the edges of the velvet box. His stomach was twisted in knots and it really hadn't been a good day. Every time he closed his eyes, all he could see was that girl's mangled corpse and the strange things he'd been seeing all week: the lawyer with the face of a horror, the violent suspect who looked - just for a moment - like Bosch's worst nightmare, and others besides. Nick shook his head sharply and danced a little on the porch. He still had that damn song in his head, “Sweet Dreams,” indeed. He didn't think he'd be getting much sleep for the next month, and highly doubted that sweet dreams would be on the nocturnal agenda. He squeezed the velvet box once more, sternly told himself to get a grip, and forged into the house to propose.

            The lights were off and it was chilly in the house. He had to be about the only man on the planet to land a girlfriend who understood that leaving every light on in the house and the heat up to 90 impacted the electricity bill. He should count himself as lucky. “Juliette?”

            When she didn't answer, he frowned and slid through the hallway to the kitchen. A bald-headed woman sat at the table cutting tomatoes and Nick had to stifle a curse. Of all the nights for Juliette to bring home a friend for dinner – they were supposed to be going out. He stood in the doorway for a second, the small package in his pocket feeling heavier by the moment. The woman turned and he stared at her for several long seconds before he recognized her.

            “Aunt Marie! When did you get here?”

            Juliette appeared around the corner with a bottle of wine. “Hey! She was here when I got home.”

            “Sorry for the short notice,” Marie said with a smile that meant she was sorry for giving no notice at all.

            “What, you didn't know she was coming?” Juliette asked in that particular tone of voice that meant she was irritated but trying to be a big person about it. When Marie confirmed that she hadn't warned Nick of her impending visit, Nick could practically feel Juliette loosening up. There weren't many things Juliette got genuinely angry over, but Nick forgetting to tell her things was pretty high up on the very short list.

            “She's been telling me some pretty funny stories about when you were a kid,” Juliette warned and that yanked a smile out of Nick despite himself.

            “Dead frog in the microwave?” he guessed. He also guessed that hadn't been Juliette's favorite story in the world. In Nick’s defense, the frog was already dead when he found it, and it was cold outside, so he thought maybe the frog would come back to life if he just warmed it up. He was only six.     “Among others,” Juliette answered with an ominous smile.

            Marie didn't look the least bit repentant as she climbed laboriously to her feet and held her arms out. “Give us a hug,” she ordered, and of course he did. She felt disturbingly frail in his arms, and Nick was getting the unsettling feeling that the shaved head wasn't just Marie's latest middle finger to society. “We need to talk,” she said close to his ear.

            Nick swallowed hard and nodded. He glanced back at Juliette. “How long until dinner is ready?” He smiled to show her that he was grateful. They had planned to go out and he was pleased that they had anything available on short notice to create a whole dinner. When he'd lived alone, he would have been lucky if he could manage a peanut butter sandwich and a beer.

            “Half an hour, forty minutes maybe.” She smiled back to say that he stilled owed her a nice dinner and he nodded in acknowledgment.

            “Why don't we just take a walk?” Marie suggested. She grabbed a cane from where it was leaning against the table and started toward the door without waiting for him to agree or protest that they could just sit in the living room. She hardly looked strong enough to manage the walk to the front door, let alone a walk around the neighborhood, but he knew better than to try to argue.

            The cool night air settled around his shoulders and soaked into his chest as he followed Marie down the steps and onto the sidewalk. Nick thrust his hands into his pockets to keep his fingers warm, but there was nothing he could do about the cold moisture hovering around his face. It was bracing for the moment, but wouldn’t be comfortable for a long discussion. By the tilt of his aunt’s eyebrows and the slight tension around her lips, Marie was settling in for a long discussion.

            “Can’t we do this inside?” he asked, smiling and trying to inject a chuckle into his voice when his stomach was flipping over sideways at the thought of any number of bad pieces of news she must have ready to deliver.

            “I'd rather not talk about any of this in front of Juliette.” She gave him a very pointed look and Nick groaned softly. “Nick,” Marie said gently. Her expression was filled with nothing but sympathy.

            “I don’t want to talk about this again.” Nick turned away from her, looking across the street through the dull sodium glow of the street lights. The neighbors were watching TV and it lit up the blank wall visible through the front window in blue, white, and orange, a gentle flicker of normalcy.

            “She’s a lovely girl.” Marie took a slow breath and let it out. “There was a time when I would have wished over my common sense that she could be good for you…” Marie started walking around the house and didn't look back to see if Nick was following.

            Nick exhaled harshly and stayed a few steps behind her, anxious energy rushing over him, that all too familiar guilt and longing. He ran thumb and forefinger over the corners of his lips and they quirked into a nervous, tight smile. “She _is_ good for me.”

            “Honey-“

            “I am a police officer, Marie. I can’t be… she is what I need to survive. And I do love her.”

            “How long?” Marie asked. She stopped and turned to watch him steadily. “How long will she be enough for you? How long until you start looking for something else, some _one_ else to satisfy that need in you?”

            “I have better control than that!” Nick growled. He'd been so careful about control. If he'd managed to get through the police academy without a slip up, he could handle marriage.

            Marie opened her mouth to make an angry retort and then closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Nick wanted to be able to storm away from her, but in more ways than he cared to admit he was still desperate for her approval, and afraid that she would withdraw her love. She opened her eyes and locked gazes with him.

            “I didn’t react well when you first told me,” she said. Nick snorted, and might have said more, but she held up a forestalling hand. “Not for the reasons you’ve probably always thought, but because it would make life so much more difficult for you, and I didn’t want you to have even a moment’s difficulty. Because there are things you don’t know about our family, things I have to explain to you now.” She stepped close to him and put her hand on his shoulder. When he was a boy, this would have been the cue for him to press his face into her stomach, and later her chest, and finally to rest his head on her shoulder. This time he fought back the impulse and looked down into her tired, lined face.

            “I shouldn’t have been worried for you, Nick. Not about that. I wasn’t thinking in the moment. Even if I've never spelled it out for you, I hope you know that I came to my senses a very long time ago. You know that all I want in the world is for you to be happy and healthy. You do realize that, right?”

            Nick’s jaw clenched and his body practically vibrated with the aftereffects of years of hurt. “You could have said something, I don’t know, 10 years ago? 15?”

            “I know. And I understand why you feel that Juliette is what you need to keep yourself safe. But Nick – that’s not fair to you and it’s not fair to her. Your inner nature is not something you can repress just to satisfy your homophobic job choice.”

            Nick winced. His legs urged him to turn around and walk away from this conversation before it revved up into an argument, but the weight of her hand on his shoulder kept him steady, and her eyes held him hostage.

            “And there are more reasons than you know not to go through with this relationship. I had hoped to be able to shield this from you a little longer. Of course, it was stupid on my part. I should have told you when you were a boy, I should have trained you then instead of waiting until it was almost too late.”

            “Trained me?” Nick’s brows drew together. What he thought was going to be a simple, albeit painful, intervention was turning into something far weirder in a hurry.

            “I just wanted you to have the childhood that your mother and I never did,” Marie said, squeezing his shoulder and giving him a sad smile. “Nick…” She drew a slow breath. “I’m dying, and we don’t have time anymore.”

            The force of her words drove him back several paces. “What? You’re… what?”

            “Breast cancer. I don’t have long – two months, two weeks, two days – nobody knows, but that’s not really what I need to tell you-“

            “You’re _dying_ and that’s not what you want to talk about?” Nick demanded in a harsh whisper that dearly wanted to be a scream but just couldn’t get past the wild thundering of his heart. Marie made an impatient waving gesture that had always meant, _leave that alone_. “No! I’m not going to –“

            “Have you been seeing strange things, Nick?” Marie interrupted. The question forced the air out of his lungs like a blow to the chest. “Anything that you can’t explain? People’s faces changing into monsters that no one else can see?”

            “…How?” Nick struggled to catch his breath and his balance. The world was beginning to spin, he was starting to lose feeling in his fingers. “How could you-?” He would have almost thought it was joke, except that he hadn’t told anyone. Not even a mention of strangeness to Hank or Juliette or the fucking bartender, so how could she know?

            “Oh, I knew it! This is all happening so much faster than I expected. When it happened to me it knocked me flat on my ass for days. I know, Nick, because I see them too. And it’s not a family history of mental illness. You’re not seeing things that aren’t there – you’re seeing things the way they really are. Our family has seen these creatures for centuries. We are Grimms. You are one of the last of us now.” She watched him carefully while Nick stared back at her with his eyebrows pulled down low in confusion and disbelief. A high pitched hum blotted out the sounds of the night. Numbly, he pinched himself through his coat pocket.

            “What the hell is a Grimm?”

            “It’s-“ Marie's eyes widened at something over Nick's shoulder. “Oh, my god.” Her gaze darted to an empty corner and then from shadow to shadow like some kind of predator. “He's here.”

            “Who?” Nick turned, but there was nothing unusual behind him – an empty street corner, trash cans waiting for pick up, a cat at the far end of the street cleaning one paw while it ignored them with typical feline negligence. The _snict_ of metal on metal called his attention and he turned around to see Marie facing away from him, holding a long pointed knife in one hand and her cane in the other like a sword. “Hulda,” she growled in a tone unlike anything he'd ever heard from her before.

            Before Nick could ask who the hell Hulda was, a man – no, a monster wearing a suit- jumped out of the neighbor's yard swinging an honest-to-no-fucking-kidding _scythe_. Marie shoved Nick out of the way and he stumbled back and fell to one knee. The creature swung at Marie, and Nick's sick aunt moved like a track star in her twenties, blocking the blow with the upraised cane and swiping at Hulda with her knife.

            The creature pushed her back and turned to intercept Nick with a wild swing before he could get close. Nick jumped out of the way and Hulda turned back to Marie, slashing at her with practiced, vicious swings. Panic pushed Nick forward and he tackled Hulda, driving them both out into the street. The taller _thing_ twisted so Nick landed on his back and then an elbow drove into Nick's gut. He tried to scramble up after the creature, but the handle of the long scythe swept down and knocked him solidly across the face. Stunned, Nick crashed back to the pavement and Hulda went after Marie again.

            Training and instinct took over. Nick whipped his off-duty piece out of the holster at his hip. “Police!” he barked. “Freeze and drop the weapon!”

            The stranger and his aunt both ignored him. Their fight spilled into the street. Nick put aside the impossibility of his aunt moving like she did and fixed his gun on her attacker. “Stop or I will shoot!” he warned. Anger, and frustration, and disbelief warred in him – he wasn’t used to being ignored when he had his authority voice on and a gun in his hand. Marie shoved Hulda back, but he swung at her again and she went down with an aborted cry and lay very still. The gun barked in Nick's steady grip, once, twice, both shots solid hits to the back. Impossibly, Hulda turned around and came after Nick with the scythe held above his head. Nick squeezed off eight more rounds right to the body. Not bad shots considering that he was laid out on the pavement. Hulda finally went down in a clatter, the scythe skittering away from his hand. Nick's breath came out in rough pants and he couldn't make himself move for several precious seconds. The face of the scaled monster slowly reverted to an unassuming human visage.

            “Marie!” Nick scrambled to his feet ran to her, holstering his gun on reflex as he went. Half a second’s desire to make sure the man was good and dead was beaten out by the shock of Marie’s blood on the pavement, framed perfectly in the pool of light beneath the streetlamp. He crashed to his knees beside her, and immediately pushed a hand into the bloody gash on her abdomen while he fumbled for his cell phone. Nick heard Juliette call out from down the street, but all of his attention was on his aunt, his only family.

            “Stay with me, Marie!” Nick ordered. The phone connected to dispatch. “This is officer Burkhardt. I need an ambulance right now!” He rattled off his address, waited half a breath for the operator’s confirmation and then dropped his phone so he could push both hands into his aunt’s bleeding wound.

            “Did you kill him?” Marie asked. She sounded remarkably calm for someone who had been attacked by some kind of monster and nearly sliced in half.

            “Yeah,” he said shortly. He didn't look back at the dead man. The first person he'd ever shot dead, the first life he'd ended with his own hands.

            Marie reached up with her good hand and pulled a necklace from under her jacket. “Nick… Take this. Guard it with your life. They’ll be looking for it.” With momentous effort, she tugged on the chain until it broke. “My… trailer. Everything you need to know is in the trailer.”

            “Don’t worry about the trailer right now,” Nick ordered. He took the strange necklace, but only because she wouldn’t stop pushing it towards him. He shoved it into his pocket and returned to putting pressure on her wound.

            “Remember,” Marie gasped. “Remember this night, and think about how much you’re willing to risk Juliette’s life to protect your secret. Nick, your parents did not die in a crash. They were killed. Remember.”

            Nick looked at her in shock, but her eyes were already sliding closed. Juliette fell down beside Nick with the tablecloth in her arms and a bottle of water in one hand before Nick could so much as draw a breath to speak. Juliette shoved at Nick until he moved out of her way and upended the bottle on the bleeding gash in a careless splash before shoving the white tablecloth over the wound. “Put pressure here!” she ordered, grabbing Nick’s hands. Nick did as he was told, staring between Marie and Juliette with helpless eyes. Juliette bunched up the trailing end of the table cloth and gently slipped it under Marie’s head even as the blaring siren of the ambulance sliced through the night air.

            Nick lost time as paramedics and uniformed officers swarmed over the scene, getting him and Juliette out of the way so they could do their jobs. They weren't moving fast enough, but Nick knew that they would only banish him from the scene if he started yelling at them to hurry up. Juliette stood quietly by him while they loaded Marie into the ambulance.

            “Do you want me to come with you?”

            “No,” Nick said. He tried to soften his voice, but he wasn't sure if he was successful. His aunt's warning kept banging around in his head, and his eyes kept going back to the face of the man who was definitely a monster under his human features. “I'll be home as soon as I can,” he promised.

            “Okay. Love you,” Juliette said softly, reaching out to touch him on the arm. He should have said it back to her, but he couldn't force his throat to cough up the words. He just turned away from her and left her there in the middle of their street with the first person he'd ever killed still staring sightlessly up at the streetlights.

 

~*~

 

            Sean kept his temper firmly in check as he listened to the report. He nodded, even though the man on the other end of the phone couldn't see the gesture.             “Thank you for notifying me so quickly.... Well, at least he had the decency to fail completely and die. Yes... No, that will be all.” Sean hung up and braced his elbows on his armrests. He pressed the corner of the cell phone into his right temple and leaned into it. The small device creaked in protest to the pressure, but it was all he could do to keep from throwing the thing through his office window, and then having to explain exactly how he managed to break two panes of shatter-proof glass with nothing more out of the ordinary than a cell phone.

            He took slow breaths, stretched his neck in a futile effort to relieve the tension, and then straightened in his chair and pulled a file of reports across his desk. He had no intention of touching even a single one of them for fear that he would tear through it with the fountain pen, but he hadn't been notified of the shooting through “official” channels yet. He had to look unconcerned when someone came in to tell him that one of his detectives had been involved in a shooting.

            Hulda. The nerve – coming into _Sean's_ territory without so much as a calling card for courtesy’s sake, and then, just to ice the whole idiotic cake, attacking _Marie Kessler_ in _his_ territory. In front of _his_ future Grimm, no less. Sean felt the pen give and barely released the pressure before his thumbnail could puncture the ink cartridge. He cursed and dropped the pen into the trash can. Sean gave up the pretense of looking relaxed yet busy and leaned back in his chair. He felt the creature just below his skin fighting to come out, fueled by his pride and swelling with territorial possessiveness.

            _Portland is my canton, but I do not own people_ , he had to remind himself. _Nick Burkhardt is in my territory. He is under my protection. I do not own him_. He cursed his heritage quietly. Neither hexenbeist nor royal were particularly well known for their even disposition or restraint, and whatever that strange combination made him – neither entirely zauberbiest nor royal – he had certainly inherited possessiveness and pride in spades. It had been a struggle all of his life to keep his basic instincts from overwhelming the person he wanted -needed- to be. It had been years since he felt so close to losing control of those instincts.

            A knock on the door interrupted his mantra and he took a breath. He nearly reached for a pen so he could look busy again, but then remembered that he was the boss and he didn't bloody well need to look busy. And if he looked like he had a headache and was in a nasty mood, that was his prerogative. That settled, he still moderated his voice to the even tones that his people were used to as he called out, “Come.”

            “Sir?” Sergeant Wu stuck his head into the office with an anxious look. Sean waved him in and quirked his brow into the look of concern that he would have worn if he didn't already know what was going on. Wu stepped into the office and shut the door without being asked. He moved to stand in front of the desk.

            “A call just came through dispatch. I thought I would let you know myself – Detective Burkhardt has been involved in a self-defense shooting.”

            “Is he alright?”

            “Yes. According to the call someone attacked him and his aunt outside his home. She's been rushed to the emergency room.”            

            “I suspect he went with her?”

            “Yes, sir.”

            “The perpetrator?” He let concern and repressed anger show through in just the right dose – as concerned and as angry as he would be if any of his detectives, any of his people, were attacked on his streets. Not the special concern of someone he considered _his_ being attacked – _I do not own him,_ he repeated again, interrupting that dangerous spiral.

            “Dead on scene. Burkhardt said his aunt recognized the man and identified him as...” Wu flipped open his book and dragged his finger down the page. Sean let him – he knew that Wu had perfect recall memory and didn't need that book, but had cultivated the habit to put others at ease. Sean had enough of those habits of his own that he couldn't begrudge the sergeant that mask. “Hulda. Detective Griffin is already on scene and overseeing forensics. We'll know more when we get the prints.”

            “Run it top priority. I want to know who this bastard is and what he was doing here.” If he had more gravel in his voice than usual, Wu seemed only further comforted by it and nodded shortly.

            “I'll let you know when we get anything back.”

            “Tell Burkhardt I want to see him when he makes it in,” Sean added when Wu opened the door, as though it were an afterthought.

            “Yes, sir.”

            Wu shut the door behind him and Sean gave up all pretenses. He stripped out of his jacket and toed off his shoes, setting them neatly under his desk. Locking the door, he dragged his black yoga mat out of the cupboard and forced himself into a routine to quiet the yammering inside his own head. Wu wouldn't notice if he lost control and woged, but Nick Burkhardt, aspiring Grimm, certainly would. More than that, he needed a clear head if he was going to deal with the new problem of Marie Kessler on her deathbed, perhaps already telling her nephew about the Royal in Portland and the agreement she had with him. Not to mention her own dangerous prejudices.

            When he saw Nick, he would have to send him to the department psychiatrist. He would rather send him to the wesen counselor he worked with, but Nick wouldn't be ready for that for a long time yet. Sean sighed and restarted his routine, realizing that he was getting himself angry all over again. The next months would be a test of his temper, he could already see it.

 

~*~

 

_Juliette wore that sexy red nightgown that Nick bought her for Christmas the year before. It wasn't the place for it and Nick tried to tell her that it was cold and she shouldn't be running barefoot through the woods anyways. She either couldn't hear him or just didn't respond. Juliette ran like a doe, light footed and swift, bounding gracefully from pursuit. Nick ran with her, but she never looked at him, only turned to look over her shoulder every few strides. Fear hummed in the air._

_“Juliette!” he screamed at the top of his lungs._

_She stopped, but as she turned to look at him, Hulda - as he was in his monstrous form- charged her through the woods. Nick tried to run to her, but while he stood, the trees had grown around him. Roots held him fast to the ground and gnarled tree limbs reached out to keep him still. He yelled for her again and her eyes finally found his._

_“RUN!” he screamed._

_Juliette smiled. “Love you.”_

_Hulda tackled her in an impossible leap and tore her apart while she smiled at Nick over the monster's shoulder. Nick thrashed and screamed, but the more he struggled, the more tightly the trees held, until Juliette looked like the corpse of Sylvie Oster, nothing but strips of red cloth and glistening pale skin._

            Nick struggled out of the nightmare with a panicked gasp. Juliette slept on beside him, oblivious to his wildly pounding heart. He eased himself out of the bed, covering his mouth with one hand to stifle the sound of his harsh breath, and stumbled over to the window. The night wasn't supposed to end this way – he should have been cuddled up to his fiancé, drowning in guilt but a little bit happy too. Instead he looked back at the woman he was using like a shield and could feel nothing but the guilt and the shame. What right did he have to put her in harm's way when he didn't even know what the danger looked like? It could be anyone and he wouldn't know unless they 'lost control,' like Marie said at the hospital.

            He needed to know more. Marie's trailer was parked under his window and the rounded metal edges cast back the streetlight until it looked like it was glowing, radiating knowledge. He needed to know more before he could make any kind of decision, so he crept out to the trailer in the darkness and got lost in Marie's impossible books.

 

~*~

 

            Nick wasn't blessed with one of those faces that didn't show a sleepless night. At least his eyes didn't get puffy, but he didn't really think that the dark circles and hollowing above his cheekbones was much better.

            “Hey,” Hank greeted carefully. “How are you?”

            Nick shrugged. “Dealing,” he decided finally. It was a new feeling to not be able to explain his thoughts to Hank. They had a great partnership exactly because they could bounce anything off of each other, even the personal things. About the only secret he'd ever kept from Hank was that Juliette wasn't exactly his bed partner of choice. He winced as he thought the last, feeling it crass and ungracious, no matter how true.

            “Aunt Marie?”

            “She's holding up as well as can be expected. I just can't... understand why someone would come after her. She's already sick, and now...” he trailed off and ran his hands through his hair in a frustrated tug. “She slipped into a coma in the middle of the night. The doctors aren't sure if she'll ever wake up.”

            “I'm sorry, man. We're doing everything we can to figure out more about that bastard.”

            Nick nodded. “And in the meantime, we've got another bastard to catch before he strikes again.” He dragged the file out of his desk and flipped it open, Sylvie Oster's one staring eye haunting him. For half a moment, Juliette's face took the young co-ed's place and he jerked his gaze away. His stomach twisted so sharply that he thought he was going to throw up.

            “Nick, man, maybe you should go home,” Hank suggested gently.

            “No.” Nick took several deep breaths through his nose until he was sure his stomach was done with the rebellion song and dance. “I can't do anything at home. This-” he tapped the file. “This I can do something about.”

            Hank gave him a worried look, but nodded. “I'm going to grab some coffee and see if I can't shake down some information on that plaster cast of the boot print.”

            “Alright. I'll go terrorize the forensics lab.”

            Nick had never been so grateful that they weren't so much a mind-the-phone kind of detective team, and tended to get up and go talk to people. Sitting down staring at those pictures for even another minute might have driven him mad.

            Coming back from forensics with a maddeningly inconclusive report, Nick was stopped in the hallway by his phone. He glanced at it, saw Wu's line and picked it up even though he was only a floor away from the sergeant.

            “Get to the briefing room ASAP. We've got an Amber Alert. Briefing in ten.” Wu was at his most business-like. Children got them all that way. Nick dropped any thought of wesen, or Grimms, or nightmares come to life, and gave a short acknowledgment. He met Hank on the way up the stairs and they charged hurriedly into the briefing room. Much of the force would still be out and Captain Renard would hold another briefing when he could get people in, but Amber Alerts relied on a speedy response and they would get people out looking the minute they had a direction to start down. Renard ran the briefing with his typical conciseness, but no room for customary quips from the audience.

            “When last seen, she was wearing purple leggings and red sweatshirt.” He dismissed the group succinctly, but Nick exchanged a glance with Hank. It was a long shot as far as connections went, but Nick felt a low tingle in his gut that he'd learned not to ignore. Hank looked momentarily skeptical, but he nodded in agreement. They weren't in a line of work that allowed them to set aside even the vaguest of clues.

            “Captain.” Nick stepped into Captain Renard's path to block his exit. “When the university student was attacked? She was wearing a red sweater.”

            He almost expected Renard to put him off – a red sweater was flimsy, even by Nick's admittedly well-deserved reputation for making unexpected connections. The girls otherwise had nothing at all in common besides both being Caucasian and living in the same city. But Renard gave him a searching look and clarified, “The girl who was torn to pieces?” At Hank's interjection of an affirmative, he pursed his lips and gave Nick a little nod. “Well, let's hope it's not the same guy.”

            But something about the way he said it made that tingle in Nick's gut turn into a full swarm of angry bees.

           

~*~

 

            Late into the next night, Sean sat with the case notes open on his desk. He admitted to himself that he was impressed. Nick was showing every indication of the makings of an excellent hunter. Not only an excellent hunter, but he had somehow gained the assistance of a reformed blutbad in his hunting. Perhaps Marie hadn't yet had the chance to instill in her heir the hunting theory of behead-first, ask-never. If Sean were a vanilla human, he would have some pointed questions about exactly how Burkhardt and Griffin's shaky police work lead them to the out of the way cabin. But if it resulted in a little girl home with her mother? Sean would take it and gloss over the ragged edges himself.

            Signing the last of the report with a satisfied flourish, he leaned back in his chair and took out his personal cell phone.

            “Adalind? Look up everything we have on one Monroe...blutbad. I want someone to keep a discreet eye on him for the next few weeks, make sure he's still on the reformed list.” He waited for her answer and was gratified that she didn't make so much as a grumble about being given orders at all hours. “And meet me outside your house in thirty. I'm afraid we're running out of time on the Kessler issue.”

            Sean disconnected the phone and sat with a knuckle pressed to his lips for a moment. His tenuous truce with Marie Kessler was based largely on Kessler staying out of his territory. In return, he had protected her nephew for more than a decade and a half, and kept a tight leash on the wesen in Portland and the surrounding area. He didn't like her, but he respected her for trying to give her nephew a choice that she never really had, to take a road she turned away from. Now, sick and ailing, the mere whisper of her name was not only sending ripples of unrest throughout the region, but she could undo years of careful work in only a few hours if he let her.

            He played over their last conversation in the late hours of the evening of the night before, her voice so weak that Sean had to press a finger into his opposite ear to hear her over the phone.

            _“I regret not preparing him for this,” she whispered, too tired to be angry, but he could hear the sorrow in her voice. “He needs me now, and he'll need someone else... when I'm gone.” The thought that Marie could have set up an apprenticeship for her nephew frankly terrified Sean. There weren't many Grimms left, and the few that still traveled in the US were bad news and worse news. The thought of what someone like that could mold a grieving man like Nick into? He was good at heart, but had a river of loyalty in him, and if he was nudged to believe that all wesen were dangerous, that his beloved aunt was a victim of wesen brutality and nothing more?_

_“Marie, you wanted him to have the chance to be what Grimms once were. What you were born for. Don't undo that.”_

_“You've already started... to turn him against me. I was foolish to trust you,_ wesen _.” She said it like it was a curse._

_Sean's eyes closed and he had to bite back a snarl of anger and denial. He also felt the smallest measure of pity. What a terrifying thing this disease must be for the great Marie Kessler, who had once single-handedly taken on a nest of harpyien and survived to chronicle it for future Grimms to more easily behead the creatures._

_“Did you send Hulda?” Marie demanded and Sean realized that he'd been silent for several seconds._

_“No, and I do swear that I will do all within my power to discover who did and make sure Nick is safe from any further plots of the Reapers.”_

_Marie laughed harshly, but the sound degenerated into a fit of stifled coughs._

_“Sean?” It was the first time he'd ever heard her say his first name, and he wasn't sure he liked the sound of it. “I don't want to die this way.”_

~*~

           

            In the end, he was five minutes late picking Adalind up. She quirked a brow at him and her lips pulled down a bit in displeasure, but she didn't say anything just yet. He didn't doubt that it would come up again later.

            “Do you have it?” he asked.

            “Yes. I also have much better ways for that old bitch to buy it-”

            “Adalind!”

            She subsided, though not easily. She practically radiated her displeasure with Sean's choice of poisons. A simple schläfttod poison, literally sleeping-death, seemed far too easy a way to go for the bogeyman of the wesen world. Sean could read the thought in her pursed lips, but it would already be a touchy thing to come back from this when Nick eventually found out. Giving Kessler the painful death that many wesen would quickly agree she deserved would be something he would never recover from.


	2. Oh, Ever so Gently

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas!
> 
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> 
> For teasers on upcoming stories, updates, etc., come visit me at my tumblr: http://lightshadowverisimilitude.tumblr.com/

Chapter Two:

Oh, Ever So Gently

 

            Sean barely waited for the door to crack open before he gave it a hard shove. Adalind hit the wall and sputtered, her face changing in her sudden anger, jaw gaping open to display her viciously pointed teeth. She hissed at him, but Sean breezed past her without so much as a glance.

            “Well, come in,” she greeted with false cheer, tipping her head side-to-side to reassert her human aspect. Adalind followed him into the kitchen and, seeing his jacket already tossed across the table, ran her tongue across her teeth in obvious annoyance. Hexenbeist did not suffer invasions of space well. “Please. Make yourself at home.”

            Sean watched her silently, keeping his face carefully unreadable. Several minutes passed and Adalind finally started to move around the kitchen while Sean followed her with his eyes, standing still in the middle of the room.

            “Want a beer? Wine? Orange juice?” She didn't seem surprised when he didn't answer and got herself a large wine glass and a bottle of red out of the wine holder. Adalind obviously did her best to seem unconcerned. If Sean didn't know her as well as he did, he might have been fooled. She gave herself away in little gestures – a flicker of the eyes, the wine rippling in the glass, small steps, and the way she intentionally brushed against him as she moved around the kitchen. Adalind always was the attack-when-cornered type. Sean waited until she had her glass raised to her lips. Reaching out faster than even an alert hexenbeist could evade, he slammed her into the cabinet with one large hand at the base of her throat. The glass shattered on the floor, sending a wave of expensive red wine over the white tile and speckling Sean's equally expensive pants. Adalind gasped and reached up immediately to put her hands on his wrist.

            “ _Venom_?” Sean asked, the word nearly subvocal. He kept his voice even and his expression calm, but made sure to hold onto her gaze. He had the report from Nick in his jacket pocket – rather than the schläfttod that he'd ordered for Marie Kessler, which would have made Nick only drowsy in the miniscule amount that he'd absorbed, the blood tests found traces of a neurotoxin in his system reminiscent of spider venom. The schläfttod would have appeared as nothing more than increased serotonin levels in a healthy young man, and would have been invisible in even the most thorough autopsy on a sick woman, but neurotoxin smacked of foul play all around.

            “Going to sleep was too easy for -” Adalind protested even as she shook in fright.

            Sean tightened his grip marginally and Adalind's eyes widened. “Do not make the mistake of thinking that you are irreplaceable, Adalind Schade. Or that I will forget you flouting my orders.”

            Sean let her go and she settled into her heels, hands automatically going to her throat. She would be wearing a scarf for some time to cover the marks there. He smiled tightly at her and resettled her suit jacket at her shoulders. Standing casually close to her, Sean gently pushed a strand of hair behind her ear.

            “Don't disappoint me again, Adalind.”

            “Yes... sire.”

            Leaving her leaning against the cabinet, Sean poured her a fresh glass of wine and then grabbed his jacket and left without another word.

 

~*~

 

            A month later, Adalind sat in the interview room and gave Detective Hank Griffin her very most charming smile. She'd seen the recognition on Burkhardt's face and knew her only chance of making it through this ridiculous situation was to play innocent and keep herself glued as tightly to Burkhardt's partner as she could manage. Despite her recent failure with the Kessler incident, she trusted Renard to keep her as safe as he was able, but she was under no illusions on where she stood in his priority list. She was useful and loyal, but ultimately Burkhardt was of more consequence to the prince's future plans, and Adalind Schade had no intention of putting her life in the hands of a politician. No matter how personally invested he was in her safety.

            “I can't believe she could have done this to Serena and Camilla,” Adalind said honestly after watching Melissa Wincroft's deposition. She understood why the mellifer would want revenge on her coven, but she couldn't believe that the flighty queen managed to pull it off.

            “We just don't want you to be next, Ms. Schade,” Detective Griffin said with what was probably _his_ most charming smile. Under normal circumstances she would have blown him off with nothing more taxing than a smirk and a raised eyebrow – kehrseite was not her thing. But in this case, she was willing to play the terrified victim. And, in truth, she was frightened. A swarm of mellifer out for her personally and her first line of defense was a Grimm she'd already alienated?

            As much as Adalind hated to admit she was ever wrong, she had to give a silent tip of the cap to Renard. He was on the money when he suggested that pitting this man against them would have dire consequences later. Adalind just hadn't expected the consequences to come up quite so quickly or have such personal ramifications.

            “Please, call me Adalind,” she told Griffin with a coy tilt of her head and a calculated lift of the eyebrows. “All my friends do.”

            “All your friends are dead,” Burkhardt pointed out, choosing exactly the wrong moment to enter the room. She turned to face him. Tension poured off of him in waterfall quantities, and his aura spiraled out like smoke. The shock of that aura – so powerful already – left her momentarily speechless. She pasted on a fake smile while she fought to keep her inner nature down under her human mask.

            “I mean,” Burkhardt continued, gesturing to Melissa Wincroft's frozen form on the screen. “It just seems more personal than a business transaction to me. Eye for an eye sort of thing. Like you hurt someone close to her or something...”

            Adalind did not miss the emphasis and she was distantly impressed with how well the Grimm was holding it together. Considering the deep rage pulsing through his aura and filling the room to the point of near-suffocating intensity, she was surprised he didn't already have his hands around her neck. She had to fight to keep her own hands in her lap and not feel for the ghost of tenderness left by Renard's hands after her inexcusable error with Kessler.

            “Some people don't get the big picture. I was just doing my job,” she tried, pinning him with a significant look. It was unlikely that she could convince him that she hadn't been making a personal attack against _him_ that night, and, then as with the Melissa Wincroft case, she was just doing her job. Of course, just as with the Melissa Wincroft case, she could admit that she was perhaps a little overzealous in her pursuit of that purpose. “It wasn't personal.” It was a last-ditch effort at diplomacy.

            “Oh, maybe not for you,” Burkhardt agreed, and then his eyes met hers in a stare just as pointed and filled with subtext. “But if someone tried to take something important away from me? I'd take it _very_ personally.”

            Warning received. She drew her bottom lip between her teeth and couldn't help a tiny nod of acknowledgment, even as the fear ratcheted up in her chest.

 

~*~

 

            Sean kept a casual eye on the interview room where his brand new Grimm sat with his chief adviser in a conversation that could lead to one or both of their eventual deaths. He couldn't see or hear what was transpiring inside, but he couldn't keep his attention from wandering in that direction.

            _Damn Adalind and her meddling..._ he thought to himself, frustrated with his inability to do anything. He'd tried to draw something out of Nick about his reaction to her, but the Grimm was playing it maddeningly close to the chest, for all that his untamed aura lashed around him like the tail of an agitated cat. It was the first time Sean regretted setting himself up as the very distant mentor and not the cry-on-my-shoulder confidant. Nick might trust his captain with his life and his career, but he wouldn't open up to him. Of course, he had no reason to just yet. And Adalind might have made it impossible to gain the Grimm's trust ever.

            Despite all of that, he was worried about her. She was a conniving creature, and he didn't doubt that she could turn on him with the right motivation, but she had thus far been loyal, one of the handful of wesen in the city who had seen the face of the Royal that claimed Portland for his territory, and he valued her. He could only hope that Nick's ingrained sense of justice and duty overcame his doubtlessly strong desire for revenge.

            Forcefully turning his attention away from the interview room, he fished his cellphone out of his pocket and contemplated the number Adalind had left on his desk. The likelihood that the conversation would yield a favorable result was slim, and it had been little more than a whim to ask Adalind to track the number down. Sean sighed and crumpled the paper in his fist. So much blood had been spilled on both sides and his time could be better put to use elsewhere. He aimed at the trash can, but paused. It was true that if anyone had done to him and his what Adalind and her foolish coven did to the mellifer hive, he would have hunted that person down relentlessly, and no matter of diplomacy would save them... still, he couldn't sit in the shadows forever. If he meant to keep his territory, he would have to start involving himself. It was a long shot, but he slowly smoothed the paper out and keyed in the number.

            To his surprise, the line picked up after only two rings, and a melodious female voice answered.

            “Lady Queen,” he greeted, surprised that she had answered the phone at all, let alone answered it personally. “This is-”

            “I know who this is,” Melissa Wincroft interrupted. “Lord Regent.”

            The title rankled, but Sean kept any reaction at bay. He was a prince and indeed should have been titled king, but he'd held the Portland territory in near secret for the last decades and had never declared himself officially to the wesen population. They knew he existed, and he made sure to let himself be felt on a regular basis, but otherwise the creatures of Portland knew only that there was some degree of royal in the city keeping the Grimms out of their backyards and policing any wrongdoers in the absence of such an authority.

            “May we meet in person?” Sean asked. He kept an eye on the partially drawn shades to make sure no one was approaching his office. It wasn't exactly the most ideal place to be discussing wesen politics.

            “You should have come to me sooner,” the queen said after a pause.

            “I'm coming to you now. This can be ended without further bloodshed.”

            “They forced my hive out of our home,” Wincroft hissed. She was a willowy woman in her human form, and her mannerism earned her a reputation for a certain distracted flightiness that made it difficult to take her seriously, but she was a thing to behold when in a full woge. Her flightiness was more the result of the constant stream of consciousness she maintained in the hive mind.

            “And that issue can be redressed, but bringing yourself into this conflict is needlessly risky. I do not want your hive to suffer any further losses.” That was nothing less than the truth – not only did he feel personally responsible for every wesen in his territory, the mellifer hive served an important role in the community. The loss of the queen would mean the certain destruction of the hive and a devastating blow to the wesen ecology.

            “The Grimm must be warned.”

            Sean’s attention perked up immediately. “Warned about what?”

            “He is in danger and Adalind Schade and her coven would bring Death on his head. He is too important to risk. Do you understand the power of this Grimm?”

            “I am beginning to.” Sean remembered the slap of Nick's aura lashing out at the sight of Adalind. He'd never heard of a Grimm so strong that he could impact a wesen while the wesen was still concealed.

            “I must remove her from his path, or destruction will follow.”

            “Please, Lady Queen, we can discuss this. Meet with me in person. I am deeply invested in the survival of this Grimm-”

            “And he will become a great asset to you in the troubles that follow,” she told him gently. “The hexenbeist threatens all.”

            “Then meet me. Now – name the place and I will come, in person and alone.”

            Wincroft fell quiet on the other end of the line. He only hoped that she could hear the sincerity in his voice. He also hoped that he wasn't on speaker phone, because he wasn't accustomed to begging an audience of anyone and didn't relish the idea of witnesses to the act.

            “Perhaps,” she said finally. “The time has come, Lord Regent, to step out of the shadows. This territory has grown large and strong. The crown can no longer be cast in mystery. Do you understand?”

            Sean winced. It was much sooner than he had hoped. “Yes, I do. Where shall I meet you?”

            She gave him the location of a public park and disconnected the call. Taking a breath to brace himself, he picked up the office line and dialed through to his receptionist.

            “Clear my schedule for the day.”

            “But, sir, you have -”

            “Reschedule it. Something has come up. I may be out of the office for the rest of the day.”

            “Yes, sir,” she answered, but she sounded distressed. Sean remembered that he had a meeting with the police commissioner, but he would make it up to the man over a round of golf and a bottle of scotch.

 

            Sean stepped into the shade of a gazebo half an hour later and sat at one of the tables. He'd had the foresight to grab some lunch on the way and sat with his back to the table, looking for all the world like a businessman escaping the office for a few minutes of quiet on a break. A slender figured appeared on the path a few minutes later. At first he didn't recognize the mellifer queen; the few occasions when he'd seen her, she dressed like a professional business woman in simple but tasteful suits and casually elegant jewelry. With her hair pulled up under a knit cap and swaddled in baggy jeans, a faded t-shirt, and a frayed light jacket, she looked younger and nearly unrecognizable. Not seeming to pay Sean any sort of attention, she climbed up onto the table opposite him.

            “It wouldn't do,” she said casually, “For a police captain to be seen meeting with a person of interest.”

            Sean nodded faintly and had to repress a smile. He doubted that either of them were followed by unfriendly eyes, but caution never hurt anyone.

            “You had a decision today that was a catalyst key,” she said after a moment of silence while Sean chewed slowly on his sandwich.

            Years of conditioning and a lifetime of self-discipline kept his expression neutral, but he was so surprised by her announcement that he forgot to chew for several seconds and swallowed hastily. With access to his father's library as a youth, he was perhaps better informed on the abilities of mellifer queens that most. True seers, the queens saw a constant tangle of possible futures. Catalyst keys were rare, pivotal moments that made drastic changes in what the queens called streams. Most decisions, even major life altering events tended to even out over time, their impact lessening as they spread across the web with little or no appreciable change to the overall shape of the future. To know that a decision he made literally changed the course of history was both exhilarating and terrifying.

            “In most possible futures, you did not pick up the phone to call me today,” Wincroft explained. “Likely I would shortly be dead and my hive with me. I have no successor.”

            Sean swallowed hard. “What is so vital that you would risk the destruction of your entire hive? Revenge is worth nothing if none of your people are alive to appreciate it.” He didn't know if she would answer him, and indeed she was silent for several minutes, staring out from under the shade at the sleepy warmth of the bright day.

            “The Grimm. He is more important than even you have guessed. He has the capacity to restore a balance to our world that has been missing for centuries. Already his life has triggered several catalyst keys. His decisions in the coming months and years will have rippling effects on the entirety of the world – wesen and human alike.”

            Sean forgot that he was supposed to be pretending to ignore her and stared openly at the mellifer queen with his sandwich ignored in his hands.

            “The likelihood is high that in a confrontation, the Grimm would choose to uphold his duty over his desire for revenge.” She gave Sean a gentle smile. “He will still likely make this choice.”

            The prediction made something in Sean relax marginally. “What must we do to make right the wrong Adalind has done you?”

            Wincroft watched him with her unnerving dark eyes for a moment before she answered, “That is another matter entirely. And one for which the Adalind Schade deserves to die.” The queen glared. “But death I could have dealt her months ago for that viciousness. I have chosen to act as I have because of the role she and her coven would have played in the Grimm's destruction. That cannot be allowed to occur – with those hexenbiest all alive, the best we could hope for would be the Grimm's death, but there was much worse equally possible. Now that her coven is gone, many of the possible lines have been broken, but there is yet much damage she could do on her own.” The queen pinned him with her gaze. “You have protected the Grimm for over a decade. Know that in more cases than not, she will undo your work.”

            “She is a member of my court and follows my commands,” Sean protested, but he remembered the feeling of her throat beneath his hand, the rage at reading Nick's report and realizing that she disobeyed him.

            “Does she?” Wincroft's eyes unfocused and her voice took on a sing-song quality. “There are so very few threads where she turns aside that evil path and remains loyal to you. So very few.” Her eyes refocused on him and her voice burned with intensity. “Warnings spoken by Queens come rarely to Royals – heed this one, Lord Regent: Under no circumstances take the hexenbiest Adalind Schade to your bed, and have a care how you handle her betrayal – spite runs deep in her veins.” She hesitated and then added faintly, “In the few threads where she remains loyal, she is fiercely so. The odds are not in her favor.”

            Wincroft stood and straightened her jacket as though it were a blazer. “The Grimm has chosen. Adalind Schade lives. Three of mine have sacrificed themselves for this cause, and for the peace and safety of the hive.” Her voice filled with sorrow. “The matter of our home must still be addressed, and that of your crown. Contact us again in one week and remember all that we have said.”

            With this as a farewell, she slipped away, leaving Sean to stare after her and contemplate her warnings. He understood why the counsel of mellifer queens was so highly sought, and also why the queens so rarely gave straight answers. How was he supposed to handle any of the information he'd been given? Adalind was a valuable asset and, in some sense, a friend. But could he allow her to jeopardize all he’d worked so hard to achieve?

            Sean finished his sandwich and remained at the table for another half an hour to think. Before he could come to a decision on the matter of Adalind's possible future betrayal, his work phone rang. He considered ignoring it – he told his receptionist that he would be gone for the day – but picked it up when he realized it was Sergeant Wu's number.

            “Renard.”

            “I know you've left the office for the day, sir, but I thought you might like an update on the bee venom case.” At Sean's noise of assent, Wu continued, “Detectives Burkhardt and Griffin have apprehended what is apparently the last of the perpetrators. The charming gentleman already in custody has made a full confession, and a third perp just called in a confession on the second murder. We'll have to process him before we can be sure, but I've got unis on the way to pick him up. The lawyer in protective custody, Ms. Schade, is fine.” Wu sounded a little baffled. “This case has just... wrapped itself up in the last half hour.”

            Sean felt a wash of respect and regret for the three mellifers who would take the legal fall for the whole sorry mess. “If only all of our cases would be so obliging as to solve themselves.”

            Wu snorted indelicately. “Then we'd all be out of a job.”

            “True. Thank you for the update.”

            _The Grimm has chosen_. Nick did choose his duty over revenge. That choice might have just turned the tide in Adalind's future decisions as well. Perhaps she could yet be salvaged. Sean stood and threw the wrapper from his sandwich into the recycle bin. He decided then and there that nothing had really changed with Adalind, or how he would handle Nick. He'd always known that Adalind had the capacity to betray him, and would not treat her like a traitor unless she proved herself to be one. He was, however, disturbed by the queen's warning not to take Adalind to his bed. As far as _he'd_ know, that was never on the table, and he wondered what could possible change in the future to make that even a possibility.

 

~*~

            With only the faint light of the streetlight to illuminate the room, Nick sat and thought about revenge. He'd come perilously close to letting a woman be murdered right in front him for the sake of revenge. It would have been easy. All he needed to do was lower the gun and wait for the mellifer to overpower Schade. Despite going through a full woge, Schade was obviously outmatched by the large mellifer. The mellifer would have needed only a moment more to plunge that wicked needle into her flesh and one more hexenbiest would be gone from the world. No, that wasn't right. It wouldn't have been because she was a hexenbiest, but because Nick hated her and wanted her to die. It was poetic justice – she tried to kill his aunt with spider venom that would have paralyzed her lungs and made her suffocate in her hospital bed. It seemed reasonable that Schade should die from a similar reaction.

            It was the moment that he realized he was rationalizing Schade's death that he walked through the curtain of bees and brought his gun to bear on the attacking mellifer.

            “You're a Grimm! She's a hexenbiest!” the mellifer reminded him.

            “You're a _cop_ , Nick!” Schade screamed.

            “Drop the syringe,” Nick ordered in response, advancing on the fighting pair. “Drop it or I will have to shoot you.” He didn't want to. He felt that the mellifers had been deeply wronged and that Schade deserved to pay for it. But he defended the lives of scum before, because it wasn't his job to pass judgment. Only... now it was. He shook his head to clear it. “There are other ways to address her crimes. Drop the syringe. Please.”

            The mellifer looked at him with an expression crossed somewhere between rage and deep sorrow. He held Schade by the back of her neck with only the panicked hexenbiest's hands on his other wrist standing between the deadly syringe and her chest. The mellifer's eyes unfocused for a second. He let his breath out in a long sigh and let go of Schade's neck, giving her a none too gentle shove toward Nick. Nick sidestepped just enough so that Schade was not in his line of fire and reached out one arm to catch her. She clung to him, shaking in what he thought must be real fear.

            “You're okay,” he told her, as if she were only a young human woman who had gone through a terrifying and unfair trauma. She sobbed out a gasp and obligingly moved over to the wall when he gently nudged her behind him.

            “Put the syringe down, please.”

            “Nick!” Hank shouted from around the corner, even as the mellifer set the syringe on the ground and nudged it away with a toe. He took a step back from it and dropped to his knees without being told, placing his hands on his shaved head.

            “Here, Hank! I've got her!”

            Hank barreled around the corner and had his gun trained on the mellifer an instant later.

            “Take Ms. Schade, Hank. I'll take care of him.” Nick thanked Hank silently for not protesting. Hank holstered his gun and came forward quickly with his arms held out. Adalind collapsed against his chest and Hank picked her up to get her out of the area.

            “We had to warn you,” the mellifer said quietly as Nick approached him, gun still out but pointed at the floor.

            “Warn me about what?” Nick asked, kicking the syringe further out of reach. He didn't holster his gun until he was behind the giant man with one hand on the mellifer's thick tattooed forearm.

            “Darkness is coming. The Reapers come for you – the hexenbiest, she is not to be trusted.” The mellifer seemed strangely calm for someone who, only minutes ago, was prepared to commit murder in front of a cop.

            “I don't think I'm going to fall into that trust trap anytime soon,” Nick muttered.

            He thought that the man wasn't going to say anything else, but once Nick had him on his feet, he said, “Find the prince.”

            Nick frowned. “What? What did you say?” But the mellifer was done speaking. He only shook his head sadly and then put his chin to his chest and stared at the ground. His eyes unfocused again and he would not be roused to say more.

            In the darkness of the late evening, the scene played out like a dream that Nick desperately wanted to fade. He felt in himself a capacity for such hatred that it made him sick just remembering it. Pettiness drove Schade and her coven to destroy the livelihood of the mellifer, and revenge drove the mellifer to murders that would have achieved nothing in the end. And what would Adalind Schade do now that she’d been granted a stay of execution? Would she turn the revenge wheel back on the mellifer once more, seek to annihilate them in retaliation for the deaths of her coven sisters? Would she strike out at Nick for hesitating? When she couldn't reach Nick, would her hand reach instead for Juliette?

            The questions were getting him nowhere but further into a headache and further away from sleep. He turned his gaze from the window to the bed, where Juliette slept with her back to him. Being a cop always came with a certain risk to the cop's family. There were cases when a criminal or his associates struck out at the spouses and children of cop for revenge or leverage. Juliette was at least peripherally aware of the danger – he'd made sure to tell her right from the beginning, unable to bear the guilt of her ignorance of danger on top of her ignorance of _him_. They discussed the possibility in detail and Nick insisted that she keep her cellphone on her at all times, tried to convince her to get a conceal-to-carry permit and learn how to shoot, and how to watch for danger. But this he couldn't warn her about. He couldn't tell her to watch for fairytale creatures stalking her in the shadows, or to carry an axe just in case she needed to behead an angry wesen.

            Nick braced his elbow on the arm of the chair and covered his eyes with his hands, afraid of the decision already boiling in his gut.

           


	3. Our Way Home Again

Chapter Three:

Our Way Home Again

 

            “Sure you don't want a latté?” Monroe asked, pouring more milk in his cup than coffee. Over the last three months, it felt like Nick spent more time at his house than at his own. Monroe didn't mind it quite as much as he thought he would the first time Nick came knocking on his door at an unreasonable hour of the morning. Blutbads were naturally social, but most other wesen were uncomfortable around them at best, and terrified of them more often than not, making it hard to congregate with other wesen who were not blutbaden or jägerbar or some other big bad. And hanging out with a bunch of blutbaden? Well, like he'd told Nick that first night – bad things happened when they got into packs. Humans just got tiring with their profound lack of a sense of smell (or really much at all by way of senses or observational skills), so Monroe taught himself to be alone. That didn't mean it wasn't nice to have company.

            “No,” Nick said, maybe a touch more sharply than was strictly polite, but Monroe was willing to give him a little slack with as much as he had put on his shoulders in the last few months. “Just black.”

            “If you say so.” Didn't mean he had to encourage poor manners. Nick shifted his weight from foot-to-foot and his eyes flickered restlessly over Monroe's walls like he was expecting an attack, or just looking for an escape hatch. He showed up (this time thankfully after Monroe's pilates _and_ a shower) bright and early declaring that he needed to talk, but he hadn't done more than pace and spread his overpowering Grimm aura all over Monroe's house since.

            “You seem agitated,” Monroe said finally, handing Nick the coffee cup. “This isn't something you actually want to talk about, is it?”

            Nick took the mug with a muttered _thank you_ and Monroe turned away to hide his reaction to the sudden wave of Grimm-ness that hit him in the chest. It made his pulse leap and the beast that was really just him, clawed for the surface. He managed to keep it under wraps, but just barely.

            “My aunt,” Nick started, and Monroe wanted to groan. Any conversation that started with Aunt Marie was bound to be uncomfortable for Monroe. “Before she died. She told me I should break up with Juliette.”

            Ah. Well, there was a doozy. Monroe wasn't exactly a prime resource for relationship advice, and he kind of felt that maybe Nick didn't like women so much anyway. He just wasn't sure if _Nick_ was aware of that yet, so he kept his mouth shut and his nose as much to himself as he could. Monroe gave a nervous laugh to hold off having to answer seriously.

            “Shouldn't we be talking about this over a couple of beers at midnight?” He hated it when he was asked for relationship advice, as rare as that event might be – he _always_ gave the wrong answer, no matter what he said. He'd tried the being-a-supportive-friend thing and joined in on the ex-significant-other bashing once, only to have his friend get back together with the aforementioned no-longer-ex-significant-other and never talk to him again. He'd also tried the 'stick it out and just try to make it work' route, only to have the pair in question get into a fight that had them both in full woge and tearing at each other throats. Similarly, he didn't get too many Christmas cards from them after that.

            “I want to tell her.” Nick watched him for a reaction as he said it, and Monroe did his absolute best to disappoint.

            _Oh, no, no, no bad idea._ “Tell her what?” he asked, all innocence. He was fairly sure he pulled off the _I don't know what you're talking about_ tone well enough.

            “How I can... you know...” Nick made a gesture with his coffee cup like he wanted Monroe to save him from having to say it. But if he couldn't even say it to _Monroe_ (who was a 'you know'), how did he expect to be able to say it to a vanilla human, a kehrseite? And not only that, but one he was also potentially lying to about something else equally important. “How I can see blutbads and siegbarsts and hexenbiests-”

            Oh, by the moon. Nick was going to overwhelm that poor girl with the whole wesenpedia! “Okay, okay, okay. I see where you're going with this. Now I could _really_ use that beer...” Monroe turned away from the counter and retreated across the kitchen. It was a vain hope that Nick wouldn't follow, and of course he did, rushing in with a look of childlike hope on his face – 'this bandaid will fix everything, won't it?'

            “It's gotten too dangerous for her,” Nick pressed. “She needs to know what's out there. The other night when I was attacked in my house?” That was not something Monroe really wanted to think about; hearing about it the first time was plenty enough, thank you very much. “Juliette could have been _killed_.”

            Monroe sipped at his latté to avoid having to answer that right away. The response right on the tip of his tongue was, _maybe that's why Scary Auntie Marie told you to leave her?_ But he thought Nick might not respond as well to that as Monroe would hope. “Have you considered how you're going to do this?” he asked instead, and maybe _his_ tone was not quite as polite as it could have been.

            Every wesen knew that you just didn't bring kehrseite into the loop. First of all, human brains weren't hardwired to accept that they were not the only things staring back from the darkness. The scientific revolution made them all full of themselves, and convinced that they knew everything there was to know about everything (at least on the planet). They would probably more quickly believe in alien Carebears living on the moon than in their next door neighbor sometimes looking more like a real bear than a person.

            Of course, Nick wasn't wesen and his lovely aunt had never told him any of the things that wesen children learned before they even left the safety of the home. So Monroe wasn't too surprised when Nick haltingly asked him if he would woge for Juliette.

            “Man, a blutbad is not the introduction to the wesen world that someone like Juliette would be okay with,” Monroe tried after explaining the whole mind melting thing to no noticeable effect. “Why do you think she would be able to get it, and not be like 99% of humanity and either a.) not even see me, or b.) go batshit as her mind tried to process something that just doesn't compute?”

            Nick looked halfway to crushed. “Because she's... because she's mine.”

To Monroe's sensitive nose, the kitchen was flooded with the sticky scents of shame and guilt and loss. Monroe would have to talk to him soon about keeping his Grimm-ness to himself, but now was not the time.

            “Is there... maybe some other reason that you're trying to hold onto her so hard?” Monroe prompted gently, and wanted to smack himself in the face immediately after the words left his mouth. Nick's head snapped up and he pinned Monroe with a look of naked threat that made Monroe take a hasty step away from him. The Grimm's eyes turned into solid pools of inky darkness and the shadows in the kitchen seemed to stretch and drift up from the floor. Monroe saw his reflection in those dark eyes, not his human face, but his wolf form. It made him want to cower, to expose his throat to this alpha-creature.

            Monroe held up both hands to pacify Nick, but his stupid mouth opened and blurted out, “I can smell you, man!”

            The blackness fled Nick's eyes in a blink and the shadows once again lay benign against the linoleum.

            “You can... _smell_ me? Smell _what_?”

            “Oh, see this is why I shouldn't give relationship advice,” Monroe cursed. “When you're around other men, Nick. I can smell the way you... the way you respond to them, sometimes. And how you don't really respond to women.”

            Shock and fear crossed Nick's face in quick succession. He backed away quickly, reaching out blindly to set the coffee cup on the counter while he retreated. He looked sick, wide-eyed and perhaps frightened of Monroe for the first time in their brief acquaintance.

            “Wait, man, it's cool. Really.” Monroe could see Nick's Adam's apple bob as he swallowed. “Really, one hundred percent cool. Trust me, I'm not one to judge. And if you haven't even come to grips with it yourself, that's cool too. You don't even have to say anything, I wouldn't expect you to just lay out all your secrets to me anyway; we've only known each other for like, three months. Granted, I think we've gotten pretty close in those three months, but it's still not something you just tell someone you've just met, and that's okay. I've got absolutely nothing against anything that you are – Grimm and... whatever else. It's all good with me.” Monroe could practically feel his mouth running away from his face and he tried hard to shut up before he said something really stupid, but Nick was just staring at him with that strangely vulnerable look and Monroe couldn't make himself stop making noise.

            “Can all wesen-” Nick interrupted finally. “Can they all-?” His chest rose and fell a little too quickly, fingers twitching as if he was unsure of what to do with his hands.

            “Oh! No! No, no, no. I've just been spending a lot of time around you lately, and I've kinda gotten a feel for how you smell in all of your moods – and anyway, even if another wesen did smell you feeling a little... turned on, they wouldn't just jump to that conclusion, because, hey- you're a young guy. Guys think of sex and sexy things in the most ridiculous situations, and they're probably at some stage of being turned on just about all the time, so really, no - no one else would probably notice. I mean, unless you're spending a lot of time with another wesen with a great sense of smell, but if you are, I've never noticed you smelling like some other creature except when you've been out fighting one, so that would be really unlikely and anyway, I have a _really_ great sense of smell, even for a blutbad, so it's probably just me-”

            “Monroe.”

            Monroe clicked his mouth shut and waited.

            “If it's something that no one else would notice, what makes you think that I'm...why would you think that?”

            “Patterns and connections are... kinda my thing, man.” Monroe shrugged and clenched his teeth together to keep from spilling into another monologue. Nick watched him like a deer would – it was the first time Monroe's instincts sensed anything _prey_ about Nick Burkhardt. Even to Monroe, a penultimate predator, Nick only ever screamed _dangerous._

            Their staring contest was finally broken by the shrill ring of Nick's cell. He turned his back on Monroe to answer it, “Burkhardt.” His body went tense, and then, “I'm on my way.”

            Nick turned back to Monroe, his poker face in place but his body still flashing 'vulnerable' like a neon sign. “I have to go,” he said after an uncomfortable moment and fled the house.

            Monroe let out a breath and just hoped that Nick didn't encounter any wesen from the scary side while he was still feeling exposed and advertising it. He would really have to talk to Nick about body language...

 

~*~

 

            The rest of Nick's day only served to confirm how beyond human comprehension his new world really was, and he used the excuse of a baffling case to stay away from home and out of Juliette's way. Whatever feverish dream convinced him that everything would just work out if only Juliette understood what the world really was fled from him at the sight of the dying geier with human body parts spread out around his SUV like discarded wrapping paper at Christmas. He felt sure, in his gut, that Juliette would be in the one percent of humans who could accept the creature world. And if he really was as committed to her as she believed he was – as he wished he could be – then maybe he would go for it in an effort to hold onto her, to keep her safe. Despite all of the could-be's, the truth hadn't changed one bit in the last three months: he was using her, and every day that he further involved himself in the wesen world, the more enemies he made, the more word spread that there was a hunting Grimm in Portland, the more danger he heaped around her shoulders.

            Despite coming that conclusion, it didn't really impact him until he saw her with the street kids, Gracie and Hanson. Nick watched her gently pull information out of the girl that he couldn't have gotten with a bucket of cold water and a set of electrodes. In that moment, he saw a life spiraling out for Juliette where she had a daughter and a son... and a husband who didn't linger too long in the locker room, or use the headache excuse to get out of sex. Juliette turned to smile at him and he smiled back with a strange sense of peace settling over his chest.

 

~*~

 

            The chair creaked alarmingly as Nick fell into it some hours later, tipping back as far as the springs were willing to go before they spilled him onto the floor. Hank glanced at him with a worried look that Nick was becoming only too familiar with these days. Nick felt a moment’s burning anger at his aunt for dropping this on his head, for dying without training him, for leaving him alone to figure out the life of a Grimm with only a collection of books and what information he could wring out of an incongruously friendly blutbad.

            “You ok?” Hank asked. He kept his face turned to the computer screen, but he darted his eyes over in Nick’s direction. His lips pursed together, no doubt expecting Nick’s increasingly customary answer of, _I’m fine_. Nick opened his mouth to say just that, but he stopped. Hank had been his partner and friend for years. He deserved better.

            “Juliette and I broke up.” He swallowed hard and turned so he wasn’t looking at Hank any longer even as Hank twisted in the chair so he was facing Nick completely. It wasn’t exactly the truth. The truth was that Nick broke up with Juliette. He couldn’t even give her a good reason, couldn’t come up with a plausible lie. He was a coward and all he could manage was “I’m leaving.” And, “I’m sorry.” Juliette followed him around the house for the better part of half an hour, interrupting him while he tried to pack his clothes and toiletries, at first trying to be rational, understanding – _I know things have been hard for you since Marie’s death_ \- and then hurt and frustrated – _you’re locking me out, keeping things from me_ \- and then pleading – _what did I do?_ \- and finally accusatory – _is there someone else?_ It was all Nick could do to keep himself silent as he threw clothes haphazardly into a suitcase and gently pushed her aside when she tried to block him from getting into the bathroom. He left out the kitchen door when she threw the lock on the front door and put herself against it like an activist guarding a tree.

            “What happened?” Hank asked finally, interrupting Nick’s spiral down into guilt and self-loathing. “Weren’t you ready to propose? I was there when you bought the ring.”

            Nick bit back the impulse to snap that it wasn’t Hank’s business, that he didn’t want to talk about it. He _didn’t_ want to talk about it, but it _was_ Hank’s business, because Nick was a mess (had been a mess for months) and it was starting to affect his work performance. Since Nick being distracted could mean a bullet in Hank’s back, he owed it to his partner to say something. _I left her because I’m actually this monster hunter called a Grimm, and the world is a whole lot bigger and scarier and more dangerous than even we ever knew_ would probably just get him a padded room and a hug-me jacket. So he swallowed hard, tried to quell the thundering of his heart and drew a slow, shuddery breath.

            “I’m gay.”

            Other Marie when he was sixteen, he’d never said it out loud. It was just as terrifying and nerve wracking as it had been then, and Hank’s silence seemed just as damning as Marie’s all those years ago.

            Finally, Hank let out a nervous little chuckle. “That’s a joke right? You’re getting ready to smile and tell me that you just got engaged?”

            Nick forced himself to look at Hank square in the face. He’d never run from any truth but this one, and it was so tempting to grin and tell him that, yes, it was a joke. The truth was just that he and Juliette had not survived the test of Marie’s passing and he needed his space. That wasn’t even a lie, but it certainly wasn’t the truth either. So Nick kept his lips sealed and watched Hank helplessly, aware more than ever that this secret could change everything, could ruin everything.

            “Woah. You’re _not_ kidding.” Hank sank back in his chair and blinked at Nick, dumbstruck. Nick’s only salvation was that the precinct was empty but for them and the Captain shut up in his office. Even the most browbeaten of interns and most stubborn of old detectives gave up the day hours before. Hank’s mouth worked soundlessly for a long moment and Nick let him get through it. He wanted to believe that Hank wouldn’t turn on him, but it was difficult to know with a bombshell like this, with the sure knowledge that Nick had been lying to him (and everyone else) for years. Nick saw a string of emotions pass over Hank’s face: disbelief, anger, confusion, and finally hurt. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

            Nick drew another shaky breath and it came out something like a laugh. “I haven’t ever told anyone except my aunt when I was sixteen. That didn’t… really go well.” Nick winced, remembering the fight. It was one of the few truly awful memories he had of her, and the one hurt he’d held onto for all the years that time and a deepening friendship between them could not heal. Her words on her deathbed finally started to ease the decades’ long hurt, but it wasn’t gone.

            “So… marrying Juliette…?”

            Nick winced. “I loved her. _Love_ her… and maybe I could have kept it together for a few years, maybe I could have even managed it for our whole lives. But that wouldn’t have been fair to her. Or,” he admitted, and it was strangely the hardest admissions of the bunch, “Or to me. My aunt was right about that – I may not feel like it at the moment, but I don’t deserve that life. And Juliette definitely doesn’t.”

            Hank let his breath out in a whoosh. “So you didn’t tell her that was why you were leaving?”

            “No.” Nick summoned a smile from somewhere, tight lipped and filled with bitterness. “I’m a coward, I know.”

            “I don’t really know what to say,” Hank admitted after several moments of awkward silence.

            “I’ll understand if you want to request a new partner, or if you don’t ever want to see me again…” It was almost too much, but he forced himself to admit the possibility, “If you hate me now-“

            “No,” Hank interrupted, his expression turning angry. “Of course I don’t hate you. Don’t you know me better than that?”

            Nick was startled by his anger. He shrugged, but all his words deserted him. He thought over this moment a million times as he and Hank grew closer and the lie of omission started weighing more and more heavily. He imagined every scenario from Hank putting a fist through his face, to his friend slapping him on the shoulder and saying, ‘I always thought you might be.’

            “I’m still processing this... but not because I hate gays,” Hank added sharply, just in case Nick was thinking it. “I just can’t believe I never noticed. Or that you didn’t _tell me_. And Juliette- what were you thinking, man?”

            “I wasn’t. I mean… obviously I was. I was thinking that I would be safer if I had a wife and children. I was thinking that the longer I lived on my own the more suspicious my coworkers would get. I was _thinking_ that if I let them get suspicious I might end up with a stray bullet in the back of my head one night!”

            Hank reared back as if struck and Nick realized that he started to yell somewhere along the way, and he was standing though he didn’t remember getting up to his feet. More than standing, he was looming over Hank, hands balled into fists and planted on his desk. He let his hands relax and bowed his head, staring blankly at his shoes.

            “You’re not the only gay officer on the force,” Hank said after a moment. “Hell, you’re not even the only gay officer in this _department_. I know you try to keep out of everyone’s personal life, but how could have possibly missed Sergeant Wu? Or Detective Keely?”

            Hank could have pulled a gun on him and it wouldn’t have shocked Nick any more than his words did. “ _Wu_?” Nick asked finally. He’d always suspected, but he didn’t know that it was common knowledge. The revelation made him feel even more the coward. Wu and Keely had managed to come out and he was so far in that he hadn’t even noticed? Nick dropped forward and and braced his elbows on his knees. He stared at the floor for several seconds before looking back up.

            “They told you?”

            “Wu did. He was drunk at the time and made a pass at me, but it still counts. Keely just sort of…is. He’s never really said anything that I know of, but his partner brings him lunch twice a week and they go somewhere just about every weekend. He shows us pictures all the time- how did you not catch that?” Hank quirked a smile at his friend and partner, shaking his head at Nick's apparent obliviousness. “Do you want to go get drunk and make a pass at me?” he offered.

            Nick looked at him sharply. No way was his gaydar off by that much. “You’re not-…?”

            “No, but hey, kind of makes a guy feel good.”

            Nick barked out a startled laugh. “Not all straight guys agree.”

            “Well, I’m not all straight guys. I’m your partner. And your friend.” Gentle as it was, it was an admonishment that Nick felt keenly. He nodded slowly and dredged up a more sincere smile for his friend. “Now, let’s be done with sharing time tonight,” Hank announced, tapping both hands on his desk. “It’s eleven at night, this case isn’t going anywhere. Time to go home.” He stood and grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair, but stopped. “Do you need my couch?”

Nick was simultaneously startled and warmed by the offer. “No, I’ve got a place until I can get things figured out. But thanks.”

            “Mi sofa es su sofa, amigo,” Hank said easily and patted him on the shoulder as he walked by. “Get some sleep tonight. Tomorrow is paperwork day.” He waved over his shoulder on the way out the door and Nick watched him go, feeling both confused and lighter than he had in months.

 

~*~

 

            Nick sat outside Monroe's house for an hour the next night before he finally convinced himself to get out of the car and approach the door. He spent the previous night in the trailer, but it wasn't something he wanted to make a habit of, and not exactly comfortable besides. Monroe opened the door before Nick even made it onto the porch.

            “Was wondering when you were going to come in. You've been sitting out there for like an hour.”

            Nick felt a moment's ruffled irritation, but let it go – it wasn't Monroe's fault that Nick was apparently not very good at skulking. He came onto the porch and shifted his weight from one foot to the other, uncertain. Monroe's brows drew together in confused worry and then he noticed the dufflebag slung across Nick's shoulder.

            “Ah. Come in. I'll get the guestroom ready.” Monroe waved the way into the house. “Dinner's on the table. A fantastic eggplant casserole, made with lentils and beans and the best tomato sauce you've ever had.” He made a gesture for the dining room. “I'll just go throw some sheets into the washing machine.”

            Nick set his bag down by the door and inched into the dining room. He felt like he was seeing the house for the first time, marveling at all the clocks and intricate little wooden nicknacks. He'd only known Monroe for three months and the man was willing to open his home to him without so much as a rolled eye or heavy sigh. It was humbling.

            While Monroe got the washing machine going, Nick took it upon himself to set the table. He unhooked his holster from his hip and left it on the sideboard just as Monroe came back into the room. “We're going to need to find a better place for _that_ ,” he said with a significant gesture at the gun.

            “I have a sidearm safe at ho-.... at my old place. I've always kept it out because it's not a whole lot of use in the safe, but if you want me to lock it up I will.”

            “Doesn't need to be locked up, but, I don't know, dining room doesn't seem like a good place for it.” Monroe gave him a sympathetic look and continued through to the kitchen. He came back with a bowl of salad in one hand and two microbrews held by the neck and the other hand. Nick took one with a silent nod of gratitude and made room for the salad.

            “Hope you don't mind going vegetarian while you're here,” Monroe announced after taking the first bite of the casserole.

            Nick took a bite of his own and took a moment to enjoy it before he answered, “Not if all your cooking is this fantastic, I don't.”

            Monroe gave a tip of his head and graciously did not ask any questions while he tucked into his meal as if it was the most normal thing in the world for a Grimm to be sitting in his dining room, indeed moved into his house with only a glance and a dufflebag.

            “After this business with the geier, I couldn't put her in that kind of risk any longer,” Nick said halfway through dinner without being asked. “Those are the types of people... organizations... that have a long memory. And I saw her with some kids yesterday.” Nick shrugged and pushed a piece of eggplant around his plate. “She deserves that. A life like that.”

            Monroe gently set his beer down. “You probably did the right thing. Well... probably there's no 'probably' about it. You're welcome to stay here as long as you need to.”

            Nick smiled at him in gratitude and finished his casserole. The cleaned up the kitchen together without a word of direction, moving around each other like they'd done it before. It was strangely domestic and it made Nick relax. No doubt it would eventually get around the station that he moved in with a single man, and some people would be suspicious about it, but after Hank's reaction he wasn't quite as worried anymore.

 

~*~

 

            Some days Sean really wanted to just crawl into a hole at sunset. Dealing with geier hunting in his territory was one of those days. Since Marie Kessler's death, he had more of those days than the ones where he went home actually feeling like a prince. Someone was making a subtle move on his territory, inciting conflict, drawing wesen to the area like the geier to cause unrest among the settled population. It was getting to the point where he would have to reveal himself and take a much more active role in the lives of his claimed people or he wouldn't have a territory to rule. He wanted to give Nick more time to find his new place in the world, but as the queen mellifer warned, the time for lingering in the shadows was passing quickly.

            Sean pulled his jacket off as he opened his office door. The innocuous package on the desk stuck out of the habitual neatness of Sean's space like a dead tree among a living grove. Seeing it there made rage blossom anew in his chest. Someone came into his private space and dared to leave a mark of their disturbance. Even though he was alone, he schooled his features and crossed to the desk as if there was nothing out of the ordinary in finding a package there waiting for him.

            The simple brown paper was tied with thin twine in a single bow. He removed the packaging carefully, touching as little of it as possible in case he found it necessary to dust for prints later. An attractive wooden box with a Reaper's scythe burnt into the top turned out to contain an ear with the blood still crusted along the edges. He remembered instantly cutting it off the foolish Reaper who dared to operate in his city against his decree. That promise to Kessler he had kept, fighting off a threat Nick hadn't even realized was looming over his unprepared head. As Sean examined the bit of flesh on its velvet cushion, his personal cell rang.

            Sean picked it up, but said nothing in greeting.

            “Did you get your present?” asked a familiar, faintly accented voice.

            Sean's eyes did not leave the box, and he considered his response. “Where should I send the thank you note?”

            “You made your point,” the man intoned, “And now we are making ours. The world is becoming more complicated.”

            “Only for the simple minded,” Sean shot back. The Verrat was an organization that should have seen its last dawn centuries before, along with the whole sick system that supported them.

            “You are going to have to control this Grimm... or get rid of him,” the man snapped without rising to the bait.

            Sean couldn't afford to lose his temper and bring down the wrath of the Royals and the Verrat both, not now when his claim was not secure and his territory in such upheaval. He kept his voice down, but he would not make any false promises either. “What I do _in my city_ and how I do it are none of your concern.”

            “I speak for the Verrat and they have a different opinion. Things are getting out of balance and a Grimm on his own is like a samurai with no master.”

            “Well this one has a badge _and_ a conscience.” _And he is MINE._ Sean ached to say it, but the trouble those four words could cause in this moment would far outweigh the satisfaction of staking a claim.

            “That is your problem.”

            Political savvy be damned. “You know, next time deliver your message in person.”

            There was a beat of silence on the other end of the line. “Next time we will,” he promised and disconnected the call. Bastard always did insist on having the last word.

            Sean pulled the phone away from his ear and again had to remind himself that humans could not break shatter-proof glass with cell phones. Sometimes he wished he could be rid of the thing altogether. Many nights he wished that he could walk away from the entire world and be content to live in isolation, but his own nature wouldn't let him.

            _I'll buy you as much time as I can, Nick_ , he promised silently as he repackaged the ear in its polished box and wrapped it back in the paper. It might come in handy at a later date, and he didn't intend to deal with it emotionally, but logically.

            The last thing he wanted to do then was paperwork, but he stayed at his desk long after the faint murmur of voices from the bullpen faded and the lights clicked off, enclosing him in an island of lamplight.


	4. Of Huge Bulk and Ferocious Aspect

Chapter Four:

Of Huge Bulk and Ferocious Aspect

 

            “Is it just me,” Hank asked, squatting down next to the eviscerated body of Ed Miller, “Or are we getting all the weird cases lately?”

            Nick glanced over at him and then back down at Louise Miller, gently moving a fold of her sweater with the tip of his pen so he could get a better look at the gashes on her chest. “What do you mean?”

            “I mean... either this town has gotten massively weirder, or one of us pissed off the captain, because every call we go out on lately is _weird._ And if one of us pissed off the captain, it wasn’t me because I stay out of that man's way. So what have _you_ done lately?” Hank quirked an eyebrow at Nick and rose to cross the room, being careful of where his feet fell and looking around for anything they'd missed so far.

            “Murder is always weird, Hank.”

            Hank quirked his brows and shrugged. “I guess so.”

            Abandoning Mrs. Miller, Nick moved over to the hearth and crouched down, his head tipped. “This steak is raw, but it looks like someone was gnawing on it.”

            “And that's not weird to you?”

            Nick gave him a nod of acknowledgment, but it was becoming increasingly less weird to him the more of the wesen world he saw. He would be willing to bet that this was a creature on a rampage of some sort, and not some drug fueled B&E.

            “Let's take a walk around the grounds.”

            They stepped outside and under the police tape sectioning off the front yard. “There are hoof prints everywhere... This has got to be more than one horse.”

            Moving carefully to avoid disturbing any evidence, they followed the churned up trail of prints away from the house and into the woods.

            “So... have you seen Juliette at all since... you know?” Hank gave him that shifty-eyed look that said he actually had another question he wanted to ask but needed to work himself up to it.

            “No,” Nick answered shortly. “Hey look at this.” He leaned down beside the trail and lifted away some foliage to reveal a strange bit of leather with a vicious spike. Hank came down next to him and peered closely.

            “Doesn't look like horse tack.”

            “How would you know?” Nick asked with a laugh. He pulled a little red flag out of his pocket and stuck it in the soft soil to mark the spot for forensics.

            “My second wife was into horses. Turned out later that she was also into horse jockeys.”

            “Ouch.”

            They stood and started walking again, eyes on the ground.

            “It's alright. Turned out that I was into waitresses.” Hank gave an embarrassed laugh and they fell silent for a few minutes. “So where are you staying these days? Found a place yet?”

            “No, I'm staying with a friend,” Nick answered distractedly.

            “Cool. Anyone I know?”

            “No, I don't think you've ever met Monroe.” Nick said it casually with the hope that Hank would not remember the name from the Red Jacket case.

            “Monroe. Right. So... When do I get to meet Monroe?”

            Nick looked over at him sharply and wasn't fooled for a minute by Hank's pseudo-innocent expression. “He's not that kind of friend!”

            Hank held both hands up in a placating gesture, but he smiled. “Alright, alright. But I do get to meet your... friends, right?”

            “Why are you so curious?” Nick stopped walking and examined Hank with narrowed eyes.

            “I'm not _curious_. I just want you to know that I want to meet your friends. That's all.” He cleared his throat, obviously embarrassed, and returned his eyes to the ground, continuing along the trail.

            A wash of warmth made Nick smile. If he'd known that his friends would be so supportive of him, maybe he would never have pulled Juliette into a relationship in the first place. It was humbling and touching. And obviously also something that Hank didn't really want to talk about. Nick shook his head slowly and continued along his side of the trail.

 

~*~

 

            There were times when the justice system failed. Murderers, drug addicts, and worse walked out of the courtroom free when they should have been securely behind bars. It was the lament of every law enforcement officer anywhere – they played by the rules, served the bad guys up on a platter, and the court let them go. Most of the time, there was nothing that Sean could do about that if he wanted to stay out of the spotlight and in his human position. But when it was a violent wesen who walked out of a courtroom grinning? Well, that was something that fell into his exclusive purview. In fact, he often hoped they would walk free; many wesen were hard to keep prisoner and others actually enjoyed the time they spent on the inside forming packs. So when they stepped foot back in his city as free beasts, they belonged to him, they sat _his_ judgment.

            Sean's solution to the problem so far was perhaps not the most savory, but it solved another problem in the meantime. Löwan gladiatorial games were brutal, bloody, and wesen only. Humans didn't fight, humans didn't bet, humans didn’t spectate. It got the violent criminals (who were more likely to prey on other wesen) off the street, and it provided an outlet for the violent wesen who were not yet criminals but wouldn't take much of a push. It was a prime way to keep track of them, and it provided a revenue to fend off his family.

            Looking down at the file on his desk, Sean was almost amused by how often his temper had been tried in the last several months. Taking a deep breath and letting it out to calm himself, he picked up his phone and dialed Leo Taymore's second 'business' line.

            “We need to talk. In person. Now. Parking garage outside your office in twenty.” He hung up without waiting for a response. Leo knew who he was, what he was. He operated in the city under Sean's supervision and approval. He also had a _very_ specific list of wesen he could recruit from and those wesen were given a sentence from one to seven games. If they survived that long, they were released. Many left the city and became someone else's problem, but many stayed and became, if not law-abiding citizens, at least quiet. The wesen that were on that list were there for a reason and Sean carefully considered each one and any other available options before he took that step. Dimitri Skantos was not on that list.

            Taking a moment to clear the paperwork off of his desk, Sean gathered his jacket and left the office. He arrived intentionally five minutes late just to make a point, and saw Leo standing at the top of the ramp, alone. He briefly considered just stepping out and shooting the man – it would solve a lot of his problems. Unfortunately, it would create a few more. Instead, he gunned it up the ramp. Leo's eyes widened in gratifying fear, but with typical catlike elegance he braced himself on the hood of the SUV and threw himself clear. The man hit the wall and Sean was already throwing open the door before Leo managed to get back to his feet.

            “You've caused quite a mess,” Sean announced, putting himself in the other man's space. Not many wesen were willing to get that close to a löwan unless they we were something bigger or fiercer – and not much was bigger or fiercer than a löwan. It obviously put Leo off his guard, but he recovered quickly.

            “One escaped. We recaptured him, all is well.”

            “All is _not_ well! He killed two people – two humans. And Dimitri Skantos is not on the list!”

            “Methheads don't make good fighters! He was on my list and this kid is good – a champion. He's already won seven matches. He loves the taste of blood.”

            “You do not have a list!” Sean snarled. “There is only _my_ list and wesen are on for it a reason!”

            “We are making good money now – don't worry, you'll get your tribute, your highness.”

            “The money doesn't matter!” In truth, it did matter a little. That money kept his ears in Europe and in the States active, and the mouths they were attached to willing to talk. But he had other ways of making money. Bringing the arena into the view of the human police was not something he wanted to deal with on top of everything else had to handle. He was careful to keep his name and any alias that could be tied to him well out of the books. Only Leo had ever seen him in person, and as far as he knew the man wasn't stupid enough (yet) to start giving out the secrets of a prince.

            “You shut it down,” Sean ordered and turned away.

            That should have been the end of it, but Leo opened his stupid mouth. “I don't think it's your call anymore. There's too much money involved.”

            Sean rounded on him with a look that would have melted steel. “Oh, really?”

            “Times are changing, _your highness_. Loyalty ain't what it used to be.”

            In one smooth motion, Sean pulled his off duty piece and had it pressed against Leo's chest before the löwan could even react. “You're right – in the old days, I would have had you drawn and quartered. Clean up your mess, or I'll clean it up for you.”

            Leo had the stupidity to smile. “We're in this together whether you like it or not. You better watch how you talk to me.”

            So Leo was getting to the point of dangerous defiance. Sean let him go and sighed. The löwan had been something of a gift to his canton for the last twelve years – fierce, cunning, and a true believer in the precepts of honor and duty. In the beginning, he was Sean's most devoted subject. It took years to convince the man not to drop to his knees every time Sean walked into a room. In the last five, however, things began to change. Sean privately suspected that Leo got himself hooked on a drug of some sort – J, perhaps – and he'd become more aggressive. He started taking what was once a sad but necessary duty of providing a check for the creature population a little more lightly. In the last year in particular, Sean could tell that it was no longer a duty at all and Leo just did it for fun and profit.

            Sean sighed, got back into the SUV, and headed back to the station, thinking along the way if there was anything he could do to salvage Leo.

 

~*~

 

            Monroe had to admit that he enjoyed being a Grimm-sidekick. Not that he would ever tell Nick, or let anyone actually _call_ him a sidekick, but it was pretty fun. Okay, a little bit scary and dangerous too, but it satisfied a deep need in Monroe that he'd thought he'd managed to kill with pilates and a vegetarian diet- the hunt. Monroe moved everything off the coffee table and they spread Nick's police case file across the surface.

            Letting out a whistle, Monroe sat down across from Nick and picked up a picture. “Man, what a way to go.” The older man was slashed open at the belly. Evisceration was a preferred method of killing for a lot of wesen, though Monroe never liked it during his hunting days – a slashed intestine put off a pretty powerful smell and it ruined his appetite.

            Monroe stopped that chain of thought right there, took a swig of his beer to calm his nerves, and decided not to tell Nick that juicy tidbit. Nick knew that Monroe used to hunt – big game, people, whatever was handy and smelled good – but Monroe made an effort not to remind him too often. The person he was then wouldn't recognize the person he had become, and he liked it that way. If Nick had known him back in his hunting days, he would have been obliged to chop Monroe's head off. Also, while Monroe _did_ trust Nick, he wasn't sure of the statute of limitations on some of those hunts.

            “So I'm thinking definitely wesen,” Nick said unnecessarily. He picked up another picture and handed it over. Monroe set his beer down so he could take it and peered at the words tracing a pentacle in a concrete floor.

            “If you're looking for a translation, sorry. Latin is not really my thing. But this looks like a nasty piece of work, sure enough.”

            “We already got it translated. Something about knowing when to die and then being forced to die.”

            “Yikes. Sounds like a gladiatorial thing to me.”

            “Doesn't seem too far off. What do you know about löwan?”

            Monroe snorted. “I know they'll bite your face off if you move too fast. Nasty racial tempers on those guys – and really, who can blame them? One minute you're minding your own business, king of your jungle, and the next minute you get tossed into a ring to fight to the death? They never really got over it. You find them in boxing sometimes, but more often they gravitate towards the more vicious sports – MMA, ju-jitsu, private fight clubs, that kind of thing.”

            “I need to get a line on a fight. Got any ideas?”

            Monroe made noises like he was annoyed to be brought into it, but really he loved it. All the undercover work was very Bond and he had to fight not to jump to agree. “I might know a guy who knows a guy who might know where that kind of thing would be,” he said finally.

            Nick grinned at him. It was a smile that he was starting to see more often, but was still unfortunately rare.

            “But before we going haring off after this löwan and his crew, I have something I've been meaning to talk to you about.”

            Nick's smile slipped and Monroe regretted that a bit, but he still needed to have that Grimm-ness talk with Nick, especially if the man was butting up against heavy hitters like a löwan. A löwan would eat him up if he got a whiff of Nick's over-projected scent and aura thing.

            “Okay, so... you know how I've mentioned your 'Grimm-ness' a few times?”

            Nick frowned and nodded. “Yeah. What does that even mean, by the way?”

            “Well... do you know what an aura is?” At Nick's hesitant nod, he continued, “You have a big one. I mean _big_. Most of the time you do a pretty good job of keeping it locked down. I can still feel it around you, even when you're not upset or excited, or whatever. You have this kind of general feeling of being really freaking dangerous. Like, if I didn't know you, I might cross the street to avoid you kind of feeling.”

            Startled, Nick reared back so he was sitting upright. “What? And that's my... _Grimm-ness_?”

            “Well, yes and no. It's mostly just you – you can be a pretty scary guy sometimes- but the fact that you're a Grimm magnifies your aura. See, every living thing has an aura. It's why even humans can feel when they're not alone in a room, or that tingly feeling you get every now and then when someone is staring at your back. Make sense? Well, wesen use auras like... kind of a like a sixth sense, to put it simply. If I want to tell another guy to back off, I could just say 'hey, buddy, get out of my space!' and maybe that would work out okay. If I want to tell a jägerbar to back off, I might do this instead.”

            Monroe wasn't sure that Nick would even be able to feel his aura, or to pick out that Monroe was doing anything different, but he decided to give it a try. He normally kept his aura under lock and key – he had a strong one, and throwing it around got him into trouble that he didn't really like to court any longer. Lowering his chin towards his chest, he got himself in the mindset of 'someone is invading my territory' and let go. He instantly felt ten times bigger and badder, like putting on a sexy new powersuit and a pair of $500 leather shoes.

            Nick jerked, blinked, and then his own aura rolled out like a thundercloud, responding instinctively to the challenge. It hit Monroe like a ton of bricks. With having himself already open and exposed, there was no way he could fight off the instincts. Gasping, he snatched his aura back in and slid right out of his chair, rearing his head back and to one side to expose his throat. His breath came out in harsh pants and his heart thundered like a rabbit's.

            “Uh... Monroe... what are you doing?” Just like that, Nick's aura drew away. It didn't snap back like Monroe’s, but it pulled back over Monroe like a retreating wave, dragging dark fingers over his shoulders and neck. Monroe shivered and relaxed once the tide was pulled back to a safe distance.

            “That,” Monroe said in a little gasp, “Is how you would respond if someone told you to back off and you didn't feel like it.”

            “But I didn't do anything,” Nick protested.

            “Oh, boy, you sure did.” Maybe that wasn't the best way to start the lesson. “Did you feel my aura?”

            Nick frowned and shrugged. “I guess. It felt like you were more dangerous all the sudden. Like a suspect who’s going for a gun.”

            “And how did you respond?”

            “I don't know,” Nick made a frustrated noise, “Just... like I do when it looks like a suspect is thinking about going for a gun. Make sure he knows I'm not afraid of him and that I have a bigger gun.”

            “Great analogy!” Monroe pulled himself back into his chair and picked up his beer with a not-quite-steady hand. “And you do, by the way. Have a bigger gun, I mean. Like... way bigger. Sorry, look, man, I've never had to teach anyone how to handle their aura. I wish my grandfather was still around. Except... well, if he was still around, you'd probably have to chop his head off.”

            “Right.” Nick took a breath and looked around at everything but Monroe. “Well that was useful. What's the point of this discussion?”

            “The point is that you kinda over advertise, man. When you're pissed off, your aura could fill a city block. Ditto when you're depressed, or excited, or even when you're happy. Rare as that seems to be lately.”

            Nick ignored the last, lips pursed. “Okay, so how do I stop?”

            “I find meditation, deep breathing, and pilates helps. A lot of the big bads who are playing dress up in the human world do yoga, tai-chi, martial arts, that kinda thing. But mostly, you just gotta practice. You know, what my grandfather did to me was scare the crap out of me when I wasn't expecting it until I became... you know, immune. And then he forced me to challenge others when I wasn't ready. Or suffer a horrible beating.” Monroe laughed, even though it really wasn't funny at the time. Or, come to think of it, more than two decades later. “I only got a couple beatings before I figured it out.”

            “That is...sick.”

            “Yeah.”

            “How old were you?”

            “Oh, well, let's see... Grandpa died when I was...” He counted up on his fingers. “I guess I must have been about ten or eleven for the training.”

            “Christ, Monroe!” Nick gave him a horrified look.

            “Okay, okay – so that's probably not how I would choose to do it if I had a son, but the fact is that it did work. Maybe we should try it?”

            “You really want to get into that game with me?” Nick asked incredulously.

            In fact, no, Monroe really _didn't_ want to get into that game with Nick. He had a feeling that if he pushed Nick too far and it ended up with them actually fighting... well, Monroe didn't like his chances. However, he also didn't like the idea of Nick getting into it unintentionally with a löwan either.

            “Sure,” he said, with a lot more confidence than he actually had. “How hard could it be?”

            Nick looked about as dubious as he felt. “Right. Well... you go talk to your guy who knows a guy and see if you can get a line on the next fight. I've got to get back to the precinct. And I'll try to mind my... Grimm-ness.”

            “Good plan!”

 

~*~

 

            Nick climbed out of the SUV and was shaking his head even as he rounded the front to see the remains of Brian Cooney's car, in no better condition than Skantos' had been the day before. “This is a bust,” he said, but he didn't break pace. The smallest thing could lead them to a breakthrough in the case. Before he could get within ten paces of the vehicle, his phone rang. Seeing Monroe's number on the display, he picked it up.

            “Hey, man, I've been waiting at marker twelve the Saint Helen’s Highway for about half an hour now, but I haven't seen anyone yet.”

            “Okay – as soon as they tell you where that fight is -”

            “I know, I know, call you right away. Oh, hey, here comes someone in a truck with some kind of horse trailer. I think this is my guy-”

            “Horse trailer? Monroe, wait-” A really nasty, poisonous feeling settled in Nick's gut.

            “Gotta go! Talk to you soon!”

            “Monroe, no! Get out of there right now!”

            Nick's first impulse was to turn around and jump right back into the SUV with no explanations given, but that wouldn't help Monroe stay out of the light in the long run. Of course, if Monroe's contact was who Nick thought he was, staying out of the light of the police department was the least of Monroe's worries.

            “Hank! I've got a lead on the next fight from a bookie. I'm headed to mile marker twelve on Saint Helen’s Highway. I'll phone you with an exact location – can you have backup standing by?”

            “Sure thing! Go!”

            That tiny bit of cover planted, Nick jumped back into the SUV and sped out of the parking lot and away from the abandoned cars. He must have broken just about every traffic law in existence getting to Monroe's last known position, holding his cell phone between his legs and anxiously checking the display every two minutes in a vain hope that he was overreacting and Monroe would call any moment with the address for the big fight.

            Nick skidded out on the shoulder just as a stranger was climbing into Monroe's car. He had the door open almost before the vehicle was in park and was across the short distance between his SUV and Monroe's ridiculous VW before the stranger could even decide whether he wanted to try and make a run for it on foot or see if he could get the car started. Nick didn't even give him the 'Portland PD' warning, just reached in through the open window and grabbed the man by the back of the neck. He slammed the would-be thief into the steering wheel just hard enough to daze him and then dragged him bodily out of the car through the open window. He wasn't exactly a small man and Nick had to take several wide steps away from the vehicle to get him out completely. Nick slammed the man back into the car.

            “Where is he?” he snarled in his very most menacing tone.

            “I-I-I-I d-don't know! I swear! I just take the cars!” The terrified man woged and his eyes grew wider yet as he realized that Nick wasn't just some homicidal passerby or even just a cop.

            “Try again,” Nick invited in what he was coming to think of as his Grimm voice; low, more than half a growl, and filled with every bit of menace he could dredge up. By the sudden acrid smell of urine in the air, it was rather a lot of menace. It was too dark for Nick to even identify the wesen, but the terrified creature quickly rattled out an address. Nick dragged him to the back of the SUV by the collar of his jacket, keying the back hatch with his free hand. The wesen started a chant of “God, don't kill me,” as soon as his back left the VW's flank.

            “God isn't here,” Nick snarled at him. “You better start worrying about _me_ instead.”

            Fueled by rage and some undefined darkness, Nick lifted the man by the back of his neck and threw him into the storage compartment. There was a heavy duty metal grill between the storage area and the back seat to keep his terrified wesen prisoner from doing anything stupid. Nick cuffed him to a ring set in the floor and then slammed the door on the man's continued pleas.

            Nick knew that later he would react to this. He could already feel the anxiety under his breastbone; if he wasn't so filled with adrenaline and rage, he would be sick and shaking with worry. As it stood, he was merely angry – infuriated that someone would dare to go after one of his friends. He yanked his cell out on his way to the front seat.

            “Hank! Got it.” He rattled off the location of the fight, yet another abandoned warehouse, and waited only a breath for Hank's acknowledgment before he disconnected the line and jumped into the driver's seat. The wesen had degenerated into terrified moans, but Nick would take it over the wailing. He threw the car in drive and gunned it, briefly fishtailing on the gravel before the back tires caught and shot him forward.

           

            Nick came upon a scene out of a nightmare. Monroe stood in a steel cage, circling warily, eyes wide and obviously frightened. He held a heavy mace in one hand and a round shield in the other. Across from him, a skalenzhane in full woge brandished a morning star and feinted in at Nick's friend.

            Nick considered discharging his gun to break up the activity, but he could tell that several, if not most, of the crowd was carrying and he didn't want to precipitate a shoot out if he could avoid it. Instead, his eyes scanned for and found Leo Taymore standing at one of the cage walls, hands shoved perilously into the gaps between steel cross bars. He looked like every addict Nick had ever dealt with, eyes as wide as saucers and expression filled with mania. Nick shoved roughly through the crowd to Taymore's side and gave him a rough shove to get his attention.

            The löwan rounded on him with the same rage that a PCP addict could be driven into when startled. Unlike a PCP addict, he seemed to recognize Nick after a moment and managed to pull himself back from the edge.

            “Stop this fight, now,” Nick commanded.

            Taymore grinned. “There is no stopping the fight! The only one with the privilege to leave the löwan games is the victor!”

            Nick looked back at Monroe and found the blutbad staring at him with red eyes and a kind of plea. Monroe ducked one swing and then caught his opponent's shield against his own. They remained in that stalemate for several long seconds, both straining against each other and Monroe obviously fighting to hold himself back.

            “I'll fight!” Nick announced. His voice carried over the crowd and a ripple of silence fell as those closest to him nudged their fellow spectators further back. “I'll fight in the blutbad's place. For both of us,” he added significantly, narrowing his eyes at Taymore in a clear warning.

            “A Grimm in my ring?” Taymore purred. “Gentlemen! We have a very rare treat for you tonight! A volunteer for my ring! And what a fight it shall be.” A thunderous cheer went up and Nick was hustled through the crowd to the door. Monroe mirrored him on the inside of the cage, keeping his shield up and one eye on his opponent.

            “Man, what are you doing?” he demanded when the door opened. Nick caught the door with one hand and made an impatient gesture for Monroe to get out of the cage. Monroe tried to obey, but Nick felt a hand between his shoulder blades a second too late and Taymore laughed as he shoved Nick into Monroe's chest. The door slammed with an almost musical metallic clang.

            “What are you _doing?”_ Monroe demanded again, steadying Nick automatically and then quickly turning so he didn't have his back to the skalenzhane.

            “Saving your hide,” Nick answered.

            “By putting yours on the chopping block!”

            “Hank is on his way with back up. I just need to be able to stall until he can get here. Now what are this guy's weaknesses?”

            “He doesn't have any,” Monroe lamented.

            “Give me something I can use!” Nick snapped, taking the sword thrust through the cage wall and picking up a shield just below it.

            “He's fast, and brutal. I mean it, Nick – he's not going to stop to chat.”

            Nick nodded faintly and did not look up into Monroe's eyes. He hefted the unfamiliar weight of the sword in his hand and didn't let on that he was terrified.

            “Oh! His right hand is injured!” Monroe added just as Nick took the first step forward to engage his opponent. The creature came at him with one great swing that Nick almost took on the shield, but decided at the last minute to dodge instead. He struck out with the blade, low beneath the edge of the shield, and was rewarded with a thin line of blood and a bellow that unfortunately sounded more annoyed than pained.

            “Nick! Remember your Grimm-ness!” Monroe shouted.

            The words hit, and he _felt_ it. Or at the very least, realized that the strange heat radiating off his opponent was not heat at all but his aura. It felt a bit like Monroe's had, but somehow... dryer, if that was possible, like a blast from an oven opened into a cold room. He parried a blow from the skalenzhane and something in the back of his head clicked into place with a little _zing!_ like a rubber band snapped against the back of his neck. He stopped in the middle of the ring, stood up straight and lowered his chin a little as he'd seen Monroe do and put himself back in the right frame of mind. He was not a fighter in a contest for his life. He was Authority, as both a cop and a Grimm. This creature was a violent perpetrator who fell well within Nick's jurisdiction. Just as he always did with the difficult ones, he simply narrowed his eyes and showed the wesen that he had a bigger goddamned gun.

            Several things happened all at once. The wesen made a strange gurgling noise and aborted his lunge mid-stride. Thrown off balance, he crashed to his knees at Nick's feet. All around them, wesen shouted in shock and dismay. Several dropped to their knees, others backed away from the ring, a few stood and bellowed at him with faces like lions and jackals and many-toothed creatures he couldn't readily identify, and nearly all of them were in some stage of woge. Nick casually brought the tip of his sword to the wesen's neck gave him a hard look.

            “I am not your enemy,” he told the man. “Release your weapon and move back slowly and you will not be harmed.” The skalenzhane quickly did, scurrying to a joint in the wall and huddling there, visibly shaking.

            A loud clamor started up just to Nick's left and he turned as Taymore moved around the ring, beating on the wall. “The fight is to the death!” he screamed in a manic rage. “There is no stopping the fight when the door is closed!”

            Nick might had said more, but a sharp-eared wesen picked out the distant sound of sirens and let out a shrill alarm. “Cops!” he screamed in a high pitched voice. Pandemonium erupted in the crowd. Wesen ran in all directions, seemingly unsure of whether to be more terrified of the now clearly audible police sirens, or the real threat of a Grimm standing in their midst.

            “We need to get you out of here, Monroe! Hank can't see you here!”

            Monroe might have protested, but Nick wasn't listening. He strode across the floor to the door with the sword raised, fully intending to chop at the chain holding the door closed until he could get it open. Before he'd taken the first swing, however, a familiar face appeared at the door. Barry Rabe, lifted a hand transformed partially into a massive clawed paw, and slashed the lock. He met Nick's eyes briefly, gave him a slight nod, and then turned and joined the general exodus.

            “Monroe, go!”

            Monroe hesitated, but at a sharp look from Nick, he finally went. Nick dropped the sword just as Hank arrived with the cavalry and quickly crossed over to his hapless opponent, still trying to meld himself into the metal wall in an effort to escape notice. The man had assumed his human features and Nick recognized him as Dimitri Skantos.

            “Dimitri, it's alright. You're safe now,” Nick said soothingly. He reached out a hand and set it hesitantly on the man's shoulder. The terrified wesen shied away from him, but Nick kept a steady stream of encouragement and he finally simply drained of energy, breaking down into sobs. Nick sat next to him, not making an effort to touch him beyond the simple proximity of his body heat. As he looked up, he realized that Hank was standing in the arena and had probably been there for a while.

            “Most of the spectators got away,” Hank reported once he saw that he had Nick's attention. Nick sent up a brief prayer that 'most' included Monroe and Barry Rabe. He nodded, resisting the impulse to ask who had been caught. “We found cages, though. Almost a dozen young men.”

            It was almost an hour before the traumatized Skantos would let an EMT near him, and even then, he reached out with a startlingly strong grip and grabbed Nick's wrist so tightly that Nick just decided it would be easier to go with the boy than to try and pry him off.

 

~*~

 

            “Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.” Normally Sean had to fight to keep from laughing every time he said it, but Priest was very particular and Sean valued him enough as an asset to play along. He wasn't sure how the wesen reconciled the fact of his existence with his faith, or he how justified his other position as Sean's enforcer. And this particular visit, Sean was filled with such deadly wrath that he was honestly afraid of what he might do if he allowed himself to handle the Leo Taymore situation on his own.

            “But that is not why you are here,” Priest guessed, tipping his head as if hearing Sean's thoughts, sensing his black mood. Despite the tendency of his faith to proselytize, Priest had never tried to convert his prince. Sean believed that, in some strange way, Priest felt him outside of the Church's territory, a force beyond what God could govern. Sean had never asked for fear that his question might lead Priest to the conclusion that the prince really wanted to be 'saved' after all.

            “No. My fellow parishioner, Leo, has gone off the path.” They kept up this little back and forth of confessional language on the off chance that someone was listening in the echoing cathedral where even the softest whisper carried like a scream. He kept his voice oh, so very carefully neutral both for the sake of those theoretical listeners, and because he might start bellowing if he allowed himself even the smallest hint of emotion.

            “Can he not be brought back into the fold?” _Is there a way to make him heel?_

            “I'm afraid not – he no longer fears the sword, _or_ the hereafter.” _He has gotten too dangerous to be allowed to influence my canton any longer, and beyond control by threat or promise._

“Sometimes the lost soul is the most valuable to the Almighty.” _He could still be of great use to you._

“I am afraid he is beyond all redemption.” _There is no other way._

“Do you need my guidance?” _Shall I order it done?_

Sean leaned close to the screen separating him from one of the most dangerous creatures he knew. He set his forehead against it. Giving this particular order usually made him feel tired, and old, and like a failure. Tonight, the words tasted like vengeance, like liberation. “I need your wrath.” _You will do it personally._

There were worse ways to die than by Priest's claws and teeth, but not many. In all the years he'd claimed Portland as his own, he'd called on Priest's particular talents only once before and had been sick with the result for a week. Tonight, he felt that he would sleep well.

“Let me just go change.”


	5. Neither Locks nor Bolts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a very transitional chapter. Tons and tons and tons of talking, so bear with me.

Chapter Five:

Neither Locks nor Bolts

 

            “Hey, Monroe?” Nick asked, pushing his eggs around his plate. Monroe eyed the gesture and gave a quirk of his eyebrow. That was Nick-body-speak for thinking. He didn't do anything quietly, the Grimm.

            “Yeah?” Monroe didn't look up from his work. He'd taken to working on minor repairs or paperwork at the kitchen table to keep Nick company when they ate separately. Considering their wildly disparate schedules, that was more often than not. Nick may have been living in his house for a month already, but Monroe still felt a certain obligation as host, and eating alone was a sad affair. He'd also learned that the kitchen table was where Nick did his best problem solving, usually while destroying whatever perfectly presentable meal Monroe put together for him.

            True to form, it was another several minutes before Nick got his question right and put down the fork. He waited for Monroe to finish his adjustment and take his glasses off. They'd fallen into so many alarmingly domestic habits, it would almost be cute if it wasn't so borderline terrifying. Monroe couldn't even imagine what the rest of the wesen world would think if they decided that he and Nick-The-Grimm were shacked up. Like... actually shacked up.

            “If I told you to ‘find the prince,’ would you know what I was talking about?”

            Monroe reared back from the table. “Whoa-ho! Man, you can sure pack a punch into a question. Um, _yeah_. And what I would tell you right away would be 'no way in hell is that a good idea.'” Frankly, Monroe didn't even know where to start.

            “So there is a prince?”

            “Well, sure. I mean, there's a Royal in Portland of some degree or another. I've always privately suspected he was a prince, but he's got to be at least a duke. And he's bad news, so stay away.” Monroe reached across the table and took Nick's empty plate just for an excuse to retreat. Not thatit ever did him the least bit of good. Nick just pursued him and gave him that itchy prey feeling that he really didn't like. He hurried over to the sink and turned the water on so he could pretend not to hear the man when he started pushing.

            “Monroe! You can't just tell me something like that and walk away!”             “Sure I can! See, I just did. It's easy. Why can't you ever let anything alone?” Monroe asked, genuinely annoyed. He knew that getting involved with a Grimm in any capacity was a bad idea on about as many levels as there were levels. But getting involved with Royalty, capital “R” and everything? He might as well just go decapitate himself and save some executioner the trouble.

            “Monroe, you are my only line to what is going on – what is _really_ going on with the rest world. I need to know how to find this prince.”

            “That is such a bad idea. I can't even put into words how cosmically bad of an idea that is! You have no idea-”

            “Then fill me in!”

            Monroe set the plate down before he broke it and took slow breaths through his nose. He stretched out his neck, took in a great deep inhale, and then let the tension out of his shoulders. He shouldn't have even gotten up – it wasn't like he'd ever been able to tell Nick 'no' with the expectation that the man was going to listen.

            “Fine. But I need something a little stronger than an ale for this one.” He grabbed the bottle of scotch out of the cupboard above the fridge and a pair of glasses. It was _way_ too early in the morning for drinking, but having the bottle on hand made him feel better. “Living room – jeeze. You are so much trouble, I swear.”

            Nick wasn't even the least bit repentant. In fact, he flashed Monroe that boyish grin that almost made Monroe wish he swung that way. But only almost.

            “Fine. I'm guessing that dear Aunt Marie's books gave you all the general information, at least?”

            “Kind of. They're not exactly arranged logically by subject. Just bits and pieces here and there. I know there are seven ruling families, but I thought they were all in Europe and America was a Royalty-free zone.”

            “Maybe two hundred years ago. Or heck, even a hundred years ago that was probably true. Not that there's many of them now, or at least not real Royals, capital 'R,' though there are a lot of American capitalists that try to fill the role.” Monroe stopped and sighed. He squeezed the bridge of his nose. “Okay, so you might have realized by now that wesen have a bit of a different social structure than humans. Royals came up sometime in the dark ages after the fall of Rome in an effort to bring some order to the chaos. They had Grimms as kind of their... free roaming sheriffs, if you like. Grimms had autonomy from the throne and could pretty much do whatever they liked. There were a few bad sorts, of course, but in the beginning they were mostly a good bunch, like circuit judges. They would travel around their territory and listen to disputes, settle disputes, and mete out justice or hunt down criminals as you please. But really, they worked _with_ the Royals to keep wesen safe from humans, humans safe from wesen, and wesen safe from each other. Make sense?

            “Now, fast forward a couple hundred years. The industrial revolution is kicking into full gear, with humans traveling and communicating and spreading faster than ever. The Age of Science hits, and humans decide that there are no such things are monsters in the dark. The Brothers Grimm, the ancestors of the most recent incarnation of your job title, travel collecting stories in an effort to preserve information that had already started to fade with the spread of Christianity and was now being consumed by this new 'science' cult.” He made double quote marks and rolled his eyes. He enjoyed a lot of things that science had to offer – he liked his computer, and the internet, and cars, and cell phones, and indoor plumbing. But, man, did humans think they had it all figured it out when they were actually getting further from the truth!

            “Right, I know that much already.”

            “Here's the thing that maybe wasn't emphasized much in your books. The Grimms started out with all the noble ideals of _their_ ancestors – hunt only the bad ones and only where they can't be saved, work with the Royals to make wesen safe, protect humans and wesen from each other. Except, humans were giving up the old ways. They weren't cautious of going into the woods at night anymore, they didn't hang garlic above the door, they didn't avoid wearing red in the deep woods for chrissake! And there are a lot of wesen who are natural predators, and they had no one to check them. The Grimm line had dwindled as more and more of them turned away from the old ways as well. So here we are with only handful of Grimms still traveling the world to keep the peace, a bad batch of Royals who have been involving themselves so deeply with human affairs that they don't have much time for wesen affairs, and your ancestors traveling around seeing the worst of it. With me so far?”

            Nick frowned. “So all the wesen who would have had an impartial judge, not to mention a consequence for stepping out line, didn't have any kind of structure anymore.”

            Monroe nodded. “Exactly. Not to mention those humans not even taking basic precautions anymore. Those were bad times. A lot of violence and not many happy stories in the bunch.” Monroe sipped at his scotch. “So after years of this, the Brothers Grimm show up at Court one day and make a declaration. It goes something like this – The world isn't big enough for wesen and human any longer. The time of the wesen is done, and now the world belongs to humans. It's basically a big poster declaring open season on all wesen. The Royals and the Grimms maintained an alliance, and back in the old country they're basically like the SS for the Royals, but the moral of the story is that Grimms stopped helping wesen and started on the eradication song and dance.”

            “Okay – so now I have a Grimm history lesson. What does that have to do with the prince I'm supposed to find?” Nick gave him that narrowed eyed 'I'm-getting-impatient' look.

            “Complicated. See... America doesn't have a lot of real Royals. There's one down in Las Vegas, and I've heard there's a baron who claims the whole state of Louisiana – lot of good _that's_ done anyone – and there are three up in Chicago who have been fighting over the city for like... the last fifty years. They are a vicious bunch, up to the eyeballs in intrigue and back-stabbing. Portland is one of the few actually stable places for wesen _because_ there's a Royal here and he's done a damn good job of keeping the peace until recently. See, what few Grimms are left in America are like old-fashioned cowboys. They don't answer to anyone, and they're definitely the shoot-first, and then second, and third kind. This Royal in Portland has managed to keep your Aunt Marie, who basically kept the whole west coast in a constant state of fear, out of our backyards. He doesn't have much to say to us, but he's got a few hard and fast rules – no attacking humans, no drawing attention from the humans, stay out of his way. And he's done, let me tell you, a _fantastic_ job of making sure wesen in his territory know not to dick around with him.”

            “He doesn't sound so bad compared to the rest of them,” Nick complained. His eyebrows came down into his annoyed frown, and he shifted on the couch.

            “The thing is that this isn't technically his territory, because he's never officially come out and claimed it. He really just moved in and let everyone know he was in town, and then started making examples out of misbehaving wesen until the community got its collective shit together. And, yeah, if you're a good law-abiding wesen and you _stay out of his way_ , he's not so bad as far as Royals go. But he hasn't actually come out in person, even once, to lay official claim to the territory, and the wesen population hasn't pledged any kind of fealty to him.”

            “What does that have to do with anything?”

            “Point the first – for some reason, he doesn't want to be publicly known. That's a big concern, because _why_? All Royals do is collect power like trading cards – hanging out in the shadows is not a good way to get trading cards. So there's something else that's more important to him, and that scares the crap out of me. Point the second – he's not actually tied here by anything, so he could just walk away whenever he wanted to. If, for example, one of those real pieces of work from Chicagoland come knocking on the Portland doorstep, he could just shrug and walk out and leave every single one of us as ripe picking for whoever decided to step up the plate. Point the third – _he's a Royal._ You get involved with him and he's either going to make you into his little assassin-enforcer, or he's going to feel threatened by you and kill you, or you're going to get drawn into whatever psycho power-play he has going on.”

            Monroe had to draw in a gasping breath, and only then realized that he'd been talking fast enough to trip over his own tongue with hardly a break between words for air. He had also leaned into Nick's space at some point and made himself sit back.

            “Sorry.”

            “Okay, so he's an unknown quantity.”

            “Yes.” Monroe sighed in relief.

            “So how do I find him?” Nick asked stubbornly.

            “Uuuugh!” Monroe collapsed back against the couch and threw a forearm over his eyes in exasperation. “Why would you _want_ to?”

            “You remember that case with the mellifer?”

            Monroe blinked, caught off guard by the sudden change in subject when he'd been all ready with his next round of 'Why-Getting-Involved-with-Royals-is-Bad,' so it took him a second to switch mental gears. “Yeah, yeah. With that lawyer hexenbitch who tried to poison your aunt?”

            Nick nodded. “She's another story, but the last mellifer that we took in, the one going after Schade, he said something to me. I've been looking into mellifer ever since, whenever I have a spare moment. Their queens are true seers – they can actually see the future-”

            “Possible futures,” Monroe corrected. “With an 's'.”

            “Possible futures,” Nick conceded. “But they can also communicate with their hive telepathically. He was going after Schade, and in another minute he would have had her. I don't think me and my gun are what stopped him. I think he was communicating with his queen and she ordered him to turn himself in. Those three mellifer plead guilty to all charges, made full confessions, and vehemently denied that Melissa Wincroft was even aware of their plans, even though Hank and I saw them reporting to her. But the strange thing was when I was taking him down, he told me that they had to warn me. Something was coming, don't trust the hexenbiest-”

            “Like _that_ was ever going to happen-” Monroe snorted.

            “-And then 'find the prince.' But after that, he wouldn't say anything. When I tried to ask him about it later, he just gave me this blank look like he didn't even know who I was.”

            “I don't know, man... those mellifer were pretty pissed off. Did it occur to you that maybe he was pissed off with you for intervening on the hexenbiest's behalf and trying to throw you to the proverbial wolves? I mean, this prince has been ignoring you for months, but he might take you hunting him down like a challenge for territory, or an insult. And then fight to the death, yadda, yadda, bad news whoever wins that one.”

            “I guess,” Nick admitted reluctantly. “But I just don't think so. He had Schade right there. All he had to do was stick her with that needle. He could have even given himself up at that point, and his mission would have already been accomplished. So why didn't he?”

            “Maybe he lost his nerve and didn't want to kill someone with a cop-who-happens-to-also-be-a-Grimm for a witness?” Monroe suggested pointedly. He eyed the bottle on the coffee table and tried to remind himself that it was way too early to actual pour it.

            Nick shook his head again, not convinced. “You said it yourself – those mellifer were pissed off, and they all confessed, so obviously they were already prepared to do the time for it. It doesn't add up. I really need to find this prince.”

            “Are you sure he said _the_ prince and not _a_ prince? Because, dude, as emasculating as it would be, I will totally sit here and watch every Disney movie ever made with you, or go bar hopping to find you _your_ prince, or whatever as long as it keeps you from trying to find _the_ prince.”

            Nick gave him a small smile that Monroe already knew meant, 'I've made up my mind and you're going to help me anyway, so just give in already.' Monroe rolled his head on the back of the couch.

            “Alright, I'll do what I can. Around the first of the month he usually gets up on a rooftop somewhere and floods the city with aura so we all know he's still there. Next time I feel it, I'll see if I can get an idea on where it's coming from. And I guess I'll reach out to the small council. The prince must have someone there who gets his messages across.” Monroe barely resisted the urge to smack his head with the heel of his palm. How did he get himself into this kind of thing?

            “The small council?” One glance at Nick's curious face reminded Monroe of why – this man was unlike any creature he'd ever met. This Grimm stepped into a löwan death ring for _him_.

            “Sort of like neighborhood watch for wesen.” Monroe waved his hand. “I'll fill you in on it some other time. You've got to go to work and I've got a grandfather clock that needs a new pendulum.”

            “And you _promise_ you're going to help with this prince business?”

            “Man, don't take this the wrong way, but you're basically my alpha. If you tell me to do something, chances are that I'm going to do it.”

            Nick froze in the act of strapping his gun to his belt. “I'm your _what_?”

            “Alpha,” Monroe repeated.

            “I thought we were friends?” For some reason, this seemed to upset Nick and it just reaffirmed exactly why Monroe was willing to bear his throat for him.

            “We are friends. You're also my alpha. Doesn't mean that I am going to grovel, or that I'm not going to tell you when you're planning on doing something phenomenally stupid. It just means that it if ever comes down to picking sides, my decision is already made. And if you need someone to stand next to you,” Monroe made a sweeping gesture to encompass his cardigan-clad self. “Here I am.”

            Nick absorbed this for a moment while he finished the business of getting his holster attached to his belt. “So... am I your alpha because you're my friend, or are you my friend because I'm your alpha?” He narrowed his eyes, watching Monroe very carefully.

            “I meant to wait to mention the whole alpha thing until you let go of a few of those human labels. Think about everything I've told you about Grimms and my personal history with Grimms in general. Do you really think I'd cozy up to one just because he's got a kick-ass aura?”

            It seemed to be the right set of words, because Nick relaxed instantly. He smiled. “Point taken.”

            “And I'm not the only one,” Monroe felt compelled to point out. “That den of eisbiber? Pretty sure they would follow you to Hell's doorstep – or at least the front gate. And the jägerbar – Rabe and his son? They've done a lot of good press for you in the community. Even Hank, vanilla human that he is, would probably call you alpha if he knew anything about wesen.”

            “I'm not sure that's comforting,” Nick said uneasily. Then he laughed a little. “What a weird pack.”

            Monroe snorted a brief chuckle. “The weirdest.”

            “Alright – thanks for the history lesson. I'm headed out. See you tonight.” Nick waved on his way to the door, still shaking his head.

            “What do you want for dinner?” Monroe called after him.

            “Whatever you feel like cooking!” Nick shouted back a moment before the door closed. The lock _snicted_ into place a second later and Monroe let his breath out in a long sigh. Well, life with a Grimm would probably never be boring.

            “But we've got to do something about you wearing the same seven shirts every week...” Monroe muttered at the door.

 

~*~

 

            Monroe sat outside what used to be Nick's house. He could tell that Juliette was home, her sensible economy car sitting in the drive way and her shadow moving occasionally past one window or the other. Monroe took a few deep breaths and finally opened his door. And closed it again right away.

            “Man, Nick is going _kill_ you for this. Maybe even literally,” Monroe told his reflection. A moment later he added, “But he'll probably live in your house with the same seven shirts if you don't intervene.” He briefly considered just taking his credit card and buying Nick a whole new wardrobe, and for a blissful second it sounded like a much preferable solution. But Nick would be annoyed that Monroe took it on himself to clothe him, and probably offended, and then he would insist on paying Monroe back....

            With a great moan, Monroe climbed out of the car. He nearly got right back in, but a neighbor caught sight of him and gave him a curious look from her porch. Deciding that he didn't need to have the cops called on him for loitering and suspicious activity, he gave her as friendly a smile as he could manage and waved. The elderly lady waved back a little reluctantly and went back inside, watching him over her shoulder with such single-minded attention that she missed the doorknob three times trying to get back into the house.

            “Great. This better go well now, or I still might have the cops on my doorstep...” And then it would be mighty hard to explain away why Nick was (possibly) answering the door. For a moment, he saw a horrifying scene of Nick wearing one of Monroe's aprons, opening the door for a startled pair of uniformed cops, who then went back to the station and told everyone that Detective Burkhardt was shacked up with some dude, and then all the cops started hazing Nick, and then Nick got depressed, and then angry, and then went postal and started going the way of the bad Grimms, and then turned evil and started committing mass wesen murder, and was eventually captured by a Reaper, and then-

            The door opened. Monroe stared at Juliette for a moment in stunned confusion, realizing after a heart beat or three that he'd actually knocked on the door while in the middle of his internal monologue.

            “...Hi,” he said brilliantly.

            Juliette quirked an eyebrow at him. “Hello. Can I....help you?”

            “Oh, uh, right. Sorry. I'm Monroe – that is, my name is Monroe, and I'm...” He looked away from her suspicious face and realized that he should have spent his internal monologue time figuring out what to say to Nick's ex-girlfriend and not inventing a whole alternate reality where Nick was a no-kidding-card-carrying-member of the Dark Side.

            “Yes?” Juliette prompted a little impatiently.

            “I'm here to pick up Nick's things,” Monroe said slowly and then forced his mouth to shut before he could spill out a whole torrent of unnecessary sounds.

            Juliette reared back a little, eyes going wide and shocked. “Nick can't even face me long enough to pick up his things?” She demanded. “He sends some... who the hell are you, anyway?! A cop buddy? What a cowardly, little-”

            “Whoa, whoa,” Monroe held up both hands and was conscious that he must look like some kind of bobblehead toy, head and hands shaking wildly. “He doesn't even know I'm here. And I'm not a cop. Just a friend.”

            “How come I've never met you before?” she asked suspiciously.

            “Well... um. See, Nick and I met over a case a while ago, and we mostly just worked together, you know – in a professional capacity. And then... well, he needed some place to stay, I had a guest room-”

            “He's _living with you_?” Juliette's eyes narrowed dangerously. Where most women might have been screaming more and more shrilly, her voice was actually getting lower and quieter the longer this really ill-conceived plan of Monroe's chugged on down the track towards the cliff with the clearly posted DANGER signs all over it.

            “Well... Yes?”

            “Un. Believable.” She crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head in obvious fury.

            “You know what? This was a really bad plan – I just thought that I would come over and help Nick out because he's been wearing like, the same seven shirts and three pants for the last month, and I know he's really broken up about-”

            “Oh, _he's_ broken up, is he?”

            Open mouth. Insert foot. “Yes?” Man, he was starting to see what Nick saw in this girl – she was hot, obviously smart with the whole vet thing, and she was kinda scary too. She reminded him just a tiny bit of Rosalee. Not that Rosalee would probably like the comparison, or that he should ever mention that. Ever. “I'm just going to go.” Monroe turned on his heel, tucked his proverbial tail between his legs, and beat a hasty retreat.

            “If you don't come get his things right now, I'm donating every single thing he owns to Goodwill as soon as you leave and he can just go _buy_ them back.”

            Monroe froze on the walk and cursed. He turned back around and felt like a man headed to his own execution as he made his way back up the stairs. Juliette opened the door wide and made an angry sweeping gesture to invite him inside. Monroe swallowed hard and edged past her, jumping when she slammed the door behind him and then elbowed past him and stomped up the stairs.

            Neatly labeled boxes lined the hallway. Monroe wasn't sure if he should be grateful for that or not. On the one hand, he didn't have to pack anything. On the other hand, it made things somehow even more awkward when she pointed to the first one, marked “Clothes” in neat block letters, and then leaned against the wall and actually started tapping her foot.

            Monroe carried as many boxes out as he could, taking the clothes and the essentials first and then stuffing in what he could of the other things – books, memorabilia, tools. He was sure that he was leaving about million things behind that Nick would actually want and just hoped that Juliette didn't follow through on the whole Goodwill thing.

            Juliette got bored of looming about half way through the process and started helping him move the boxes. She seemed to calm down as they worked together to pack Monroe's unsuitable car as full as possible. Juliette turned out to be an excellent packer and got about three more boxes in than he would have been able to on his own. He followed her into the house one last time and she sighed, putting one hand on her hip and dragging her hair away from her face with the other. For the first time he noticed that she was in pajamas.

            “I am _so_ really sorry for my intrusion this morning. Really, I didn't think that through at all, I was just trying to help.”

            Juliette let out a harsh breath. “It's fine. Honestly, I've been trying to get a hold of him all month. He didn't leave me an address, he isn't picking up his personal cell, and I haven't been desperate enough to try him on his work cell. I did try to call the precinct a few times, but he never returned my calls. I just... don't understand what happened. We were fine, we were _good_ , and then Marie died and things started getting so crazy at work, but he started lying to me too. I would wake up sometimes in the middle of the night and he would just be gone, without a word, and then he would sneak back into bed before I got up in the morning and not even mention it. But I thought we were working through it, I thought things were looking up and then...” she made a gesture to the house, looking a little sad with blank places were things had once obviously been. “And I found this while I was packing his clothing.”

            Monroe shouldn't be there for any of this, but she looked so lost and frustrated and hurt, and Monroe had never been able to resist the damsel in distress routine. Juliette crossed the living room to a side table and pulled a drawer open. She walked back to Monroe with a little black velvet box, holding it out to him like he'd just asked for a tissue or a piece of gum. He already knew what was in it, because there isn't much you keep in a little black velvet box, but he still opened it with the vague hope that it would be a pair of earrings.

            Nope. Shiny engagement ring. Monroe looked back at Juliette helplessly, completely at a loss for words.

            “You know he wouldn't even tell me why?” She started to tear up and sank down to the couch, looking small and vulnerable and so very much like prey in her red pajama top. Monroe ripped his mind away from that chain of thought and instead perched uncomfortably on the chair opposite her. He shut the little box carefully and held it out, but she waved her hand.

            “Are you sleeping with him? Is that why I've never met you or even _heard_ of a 'Monroe' before?” Juliette asked suddenly. Her voice could have sounded accusatory, or sickened, or plumb angry, but instead she just looked defeated. She looked like someone who had reached the end of her rope and couldn't see the floor below her feet.

            “No!” Monroe answered firmly, terrified that this conversation would somehow get back to Nick and then the whole Nick-takes-the-red-light-saber scenario came to pass all over again. “No, no. Just roommates. I have a lovely girlfriend named Rosalee. You'd like her.” And Rosalee would probably also like to know that she was now Monroe's girlfriend. He winced.

            “Then _why_?”

            “I don't... even if I really knew why-” Oh, such a big fat lie, “I couldn't tell you. Wouldn't. I shouldn't have even stuck my nose in this far and it's really not my place to get involved. And I know that's a shitty thing to say, since I'm the one who showed up uninvited and without Nick's permission and basically involved myself, but Nick is my friend and it's not right for me to-”

            Juliette made a frustrated noise, but she nodded. “I understand. Can you at least tell me where you live so I can try to talk to him?”

            Ooooh, that sounded like such a phenomenally bad bad _bad_ idea. His mouth moved like a grounded fish, and he tried to think of some way of telling her, 'oh hell no!' without saying it precisely like that. He wasn't coming up with a whole lot of alternatives.

            Juliette finally let him off the hook with a wave of her hand. “It's fine. You're right. You're his friend and I shouldn't be asking you to get involved like that. Thank you for at least coming to get his things. And tell him that we need to figure out what to do about the house.”

            “That I can do.” Of course, Nick would probably kill him when he realized that Monroe had taken it upon himself to make an even larger mess of the situation than it already was, but he would try to deliver Juliette's warning between punches.

            Monroe left after a few more awkward seconds, carrying the little box out with him. He sat in his car for a moment before turning it on with his forehead pressed to the steering wheel.

            “Oh, you've gone and done it this time...” he told his reflection as he started the car.

 

~*~

 

            The house smelled like herbs and tomato sauce when Nick got home. He barely resisted the urge to call out, 'Honey, I'm home!' as he stripped off his jacket and started removing gun and badge.

            “Smells great,” he said instead, leaning in the kitchen doorway. Monroe jumped in surprise and then gave Nick a smile that seemed positively nervous. He hurried over to the fridge and pulled out a beer, twisted the top off and handed it over. Nick glanced at it – his favorite ale, and not one that Monroe liked. Another glance around the kitchen suggested that something was _off_. Monroe had obviously gone to a lot of trouble of trouble over dinner. A quick glance behind him revealed that the table was set with nice china, a full silverware set including multiple forks, wine glasses, and unlit candlesticks.

            Nick decided to try and pretend the whole situation was not at all as weird as it seemed. “So... what's for dinner?” He was starting to get a niggling fear that this was a date, an apology, or some kind of weird wesen-to-alpha thing. He didn't like any of the options.

            “Baked eggplant with a butternut squash vodka sauce, those lemon-broiled asparagus that you like, mashed potatoes, spinach salad, and pecan pie for desert. My mother's recipe on the pie – and it wasn't so great when she made it, you know? But I've made some improvements and I've got to say, pretty tasty now. Oh, and white wine.” Monroe jumped around the kitchen like a nervous pinball and it didn’t help to put Nick’s mind to ease.

            Nick watched him carefully but Monroe wouldn't meet his eyes. The kitchen alarm went off a second later, giving Monroe the perfect opportunity to turn away. “If you want to go have a seat, I'll have dinner out in just a minute!” Monroe called while he pulled the eggplant out of the oven.

            Turning back to the dining room table, Nick decided to take the same approach he would with a squirrely witness and just wait him out. The silence often pulled more out of someone than any number of carefully phrased questions. Just to be on the safe side though, he moved the candlesticks to the sidebar and then detoured to the bathroom to wash his hands.

            Monroe was ladling a rich orange sauce over a generous disk of breaded eggplant when Nick returned. The blutbad gave a nervous little smile and jerked his head over to the misplaced candlesticks. “Too much?” he asked.

            Nick held up thumb and forefinger with about half an inch of space between. “Just a bit.”

            “Sorry, decided I was just going to go all out and I guess I got carried away. I like candlelight with dinner sometimes though, it's kind of relaxing, you know?”

            Nick quirked an eyebrow and made a gesture at the candles. “We can put them back,” he offered.

            “No, no, it's fine. It's not like this is a _date_ or anything!” Monroe disappeared back into the kitchen before Nick could respond.

            So that one was thankfully checked off the list. That left apology or weird wesen-to-alpha thing still on the table. He sat down and looked appreciatively over his plate. Half a dozen perfectly roasted spears of asparagus with a melting pad of butter and a lemon wedge waiting on a small plate, fluffy mashed potatoes seasoned with herbs and a ramekin of sour cream on the side, and finally the eggplant steak with the sauce poured attractively over the top. Monroe came back in with a bowl of fresh chopped herbs. He hurriedly dusted Nick's plate with it before he repeated the process with his own and sat down.

            “Ten points for plating,” Nick told him with a smile.

            “Ha. Yeah, right,” Monroe scoffed, but he was a little pink in the cheeks too. Monroe lifted his glass and held it out Nick as a signal to start the meal. Nick obligingly clinked their glasses together and took a sip. He wasn't much of a wine person, but it was pleasantly dry and smooth.

            “This is delicious,” he complimented genuinely after the first bite of the eggplant. He'd certainly had his eyes opened to a whole mess of foods that he normally passed in the grocery store with only a nervous glance like they might jump up and bite him at any moment.

            “Thanks. So, how was your day?”

            Nick glanced up at his strange tone. Maybe the date option wasn't off the table after all. “Pretty quiet, just running down leads on Taymore. The guy has vanished into thin air. How about you?”

            “Me? Oh, you know... fixed the pendulum on that grandfather clock, did some errands, and then decided I would just go ahead and cook a nice meal.”

            The meal _was_ nice, one of the best he'd had outside a fancy restaurant. Despite the quality of the food, conversation was somewhat awkward and strained. Nick tried to help with clean up after they finished Monroe's pecan pie, but Monroe waved him off.

            “It's okay. I did most of the cleaning while I was cooking, so there's nothing really to do. I'll probably just leave it until tomorrow anyway. Hey! There's this new sci-fi show starting tonight about werewolves. Want to watch it with me?”

            “You like that crap?” Nick asked incredulously. After seeing what the world was really like, he'd had some difficulty swallowing a lot of the sci-fi and fantasy he used to love.

            “Oh, hell yes, man! It just amuses the heck out of me, what they come up with. I've probably watched every wolfman or werewolf movie out there. Starts in about fifteen – I can bring out some popcorn and another beer.”

            Nick was feeling more uneasy the longer Monroe's odd behavior continued. Not that the blutbad hadn't been strangely domestic right from the start, or that he didn't regularly ask Nick to watch TV with him, or that he didn't cook for him. All of those things happened almost nightly, but it was... strange. Maybe it was this aura thing that Monroe had been on him about for the last week, some kind of test to see if he would let his guard down, or get turned on? The idea made him even more uncomfortable than his previous list of possible motivations for the night's strangeness, but he couldn't quite pinpoint it in a way that wouldn't sound suggestive, or hopeful, or rude, or any combination of the three.

            Shaking his head in bewilderment, he made a quick run up the stairs to drop off his gun and badge and change into his sweats. He'd considered keeping his paltry wardrobe in his dufflebag, but in the end it was too much of a hassle to dig through it every morning, and Monroe did go through the trouble of cleaning out a cedar dresser. His half-dozen undershirts, ten pairs of socks and underwear, and three pairs of pants looked pretty pathetic in the giant tall dresser, though.

            The giant tall dresser that was now filled to bursting with his clothing. Getting a nagging feeling in the back of his head, he pulled the closet door open. His shoes were lined up neatly against one wall, and a row of button-up and collared shirts hung in color coordinated sections. Boxes were stacked in the far corner. A quick peek showed Juliette's familiar handwriting on the side of one box and a collection of his paperbacks within.

            “MONROE!”

            Nick heard something shatter from the kitchen, but Monroe forged out and slunk around the corner just as Nick made it to the top of the stairs.

            “Why are there clothes in my dresser, Monroe?” he demanded as he clattered down the stairs.

            “That's what dressers are for, right? Where else would you have your clothes?”

            “Monroe…” Nick intoned dangerously. A small part of him noted that he at least now had the real reason behind the romantic dinner. Apparently apology was the winning answer.

            “Alright! I'm sorry, really I am, I shouldn't have gone and definitely shouldn't have talked to Juliette, but I was just thinking that you needed at least some of your things eventually, and really I only meant to grab you some clothes, but she already had everything boxed up and she was wearing this red pajama thing, and one thing led to another…”

            Nick slammed Monroe into the wall. “What did you do to her?”

            “What?”

            “Now, Monroe! Did you hurt her?”

            “No! No, no, no! She helped me put all the stuff in the car and then she gave me back the engagement ring, and she is just confused and wanted someone to talk to, you know?”

            Nick felt a rush of relief and finally let Monroe go. The sudden fright left him a little unsteady, and he leaned his forehead into Monroe's chest as the nearest form of support.

            “I see how the comment about the red pajamas might have been misleading,” Monroe realized finally. “Sorry. Again, really sorry.”

            “You're starting to sound like Bud,” Nick growled into the fabric of Monroe's sweater. He smelled like sandalwood and cinnamon and something else that made Nick's nose itch. Finally, he pulled back and took a few steps up the stairs to put some space between them. “What did she say?” he asked, even though he didn't really want to know.

            “Just that she doesn't understand what happened and that she's been trying to get in touch with you. Oh, and that you guys need to talk about the house.”

            “You didn't tell her where I am, did you?” Nick asked sharply.

            As if the universe just couldn't stand not to poke everything with a stick, Monroe jerked to alertness and took a deep sniff of the air. “No,” he said miserably, just as the _thump thump_ of shoes on the porch heralded the ring of the doorbell. Nick felt a sinking in his stomach. “But she might have followed me?”

            Nick sighed and hung his head. The doorbell rang again. “Do you want me to...?” Monroe made a helpless gesture for the door.

            “No, I'll get it.” He climbed wearily to his feet and headed for the door. He wasn't surprised to see Juliette standing there in a red felt coat and a gray scarf. She turned around quickly, apparently just about ready to walk away.

            “Nick.”

            “Hi, Juliette.” And though he _really_ didn't want to, he opened the door wider and gestured for her to come in. Juliette slipped in and then saw Monroe and froze. She gave him an apologetic smile and the blutbad shrugged and nodded his head to say all was forgiven.

            “Can I get you anything?” Monroe asked after a silent beat. “Water, beer? I've got a nice white wine, or scotch if you'd prefer.”

            Nick opened his mouth to tell Monroe _water_ , but Juliette surprised him by saying, “I think I might need the wine.”

            Monroe nodded and slid around them to get to the kitchen. Nick stood uncomfortably close to Juliette, the smell of her perfume and the very specific space she occupied so familiar to him that he almost folded her into a hug. Though Nick was probably a five on the Kinsey scale, the touching between them had always been good – not necessarily the sex, but just the cuddling, kissing, and hugging. She fit into his body so well, and everything about the size and feel of her made him feel bigger and stronger.

            _If only that could have been enough_ , he lamented silently. If only he hadn't sometimes wanted to feel small and protected.

            “The living room is through here. I guess we should talk, and sorry I've been avoiding you. It was cowardly of me.”

            Juliette didn't tell him off, but she didn't contradict him either. She nodded instead and followed the line of his hand to the living room, looking around curiously. She perched nervously in the middle of the loveseat and Nick took the coach, giving her some space but not putting the coffee table in between them as though they were combatants.

            “I don't even know where to start,” Juliette said finally.

            “I'll start,” Nick offered. “I can't apologize enough to you for my behavior. Things have been hard on me lately, but that's not an excuse for how I handled things or how I've been handling them since. You deserve better.”

            “I understand that things are hard for you, Nick. I know Aunt Marie's passing was a big blow and that things have been stressful at work, but why can't we work through that together?” Her big eyes turned imploring as she watched his face.

            Nick saw the entire sad conversation spilling out as if they'd gone through it already. He would struggle to justify why he didn't think it was possible for them to work it out, she would continue to demand answers. Juliette was too much the scientist at heart and she would want proof, specific reasons, dates, and times. She would want an accounting of the end of their relationship. She would want to know how he could have bought a ring for her and then lost interest so quickly.

            “You might want to slap me for this, and I'll be okay if you do,” Nick said instead of trying to go the grinding route of trying to be gentle but vague until the situation finally wore his temper down and he snapped something cruel that he didn't mean. “I... am. Not completely straight.” He winced as he said it, hearing the words out loud like they were a joke.

            “Not completely straight with what?” Juliette asked. She went very still, eyes wide as a deer caught in the open, hands perched on her knees.

            “I've loved you practically since the day we met. And I thought if I just _tried_ hard enough-” He made a frustrated gesture, because that was all true. He'd known that he was more 'not straight' than otherwise, but he'd made himself believe that the small portion of him that _was_ straight, that could look at Juliette's petite body and see beauty could somehow overcome the other eighty or ninety percent of him that wasn't straight. “I'm gay.”

            He thought that she probably would have hit him if he hadn't unexpectedly started to cry. The sudden rush of tears took them both by surprise. He wiped at his eyes angrily, tipping his head back and scrubbing both sets of nails down the stubble on his cheeks. Monroe chose that moment to reemerge with Juliette's wine and Juliette shocked them both by turning on the blutbad and accusing, “You lied to me!”

            Monroe almost dropped the glass, but Juliette reached up and snatched it away from him. She took a generous swallow and then put it down too forcefully on the coffee table.

            “What? No I didn't,” Monroe argued.

            “You said you were just roommates!” she said, and then ran both of her hands roughly through her hair in a gesture of agitation that Nick knew well from late night study sessions and whenever she was too irritated to even be properly mad.

            “We are!” Monroe squeaked.

            “We are,” Nick added quickly. “Just roommates.”

            “Don't lie to me!” Juliette snapped.

            “I'm not. Juliette- I just confessed to you that I'm _gay_ , why would I lie about Monroe after _that_?” Nick asked, absolutely dumbfounded. This wasn't exactly the reaction he had expected out of her.

            “So it was all a lie then? You used me!”

            That was more what he was expecting.

            “No! It was not all a lie,” Nick hastened, but in all fairness, “But I did use you. I am sorry, Juliette. I do love you, I wish I could just not be attracted to men and everything would be perfect, but I ...” Nick trailed off because this was all so much more than anything he'd ever told anyone. God, two confessions in two months after nearly sixteen years of silence. “I am attracted to men. And I'm so sorry.”

            Juliette stared at him, dry eyed, but in a daze. “I can't deal with this right now.” She drained the rest of the wine and stood up quickly, clutching her purse to her stomach. “Call me next week to talk about the house. We'll have to sell it.”

            Nick scrambled to his feet. “Juliette-”             “Not _now,_ Nick!”

            Nick got himself between her and the door and she finally slapped him. The palm of her small hand impacted his cheek so sharply that his head rocked to the other side. Warmth spread up his cheek and down to his jaw. Juliette jerked her hands back and put them both over her throat in shock.

            “Nick, God, I'm-”

            “It's fine. I told you it would be okay if you wanted to hit me. And I'm not stopping you from leaving, but I'm not letting you drive like you are.”

            “I'm _not_ getting in a car with you.”

            Nick didn't even have to look up. Monroe approached and held out one hand for Juliette's keys. For a long moment, no one moved and the dozens of clocks sounded loud and maddening in the silence. Finally, Juliette handed the keys over and Nick grabbed his own keys off the hook to follow them.

 

~*~

 

            “Nick,” Monroe started as soon as he got into the car after handing off Juliette's keys. “I'm so-”

            “Stop. There's been enough apologizing for tonight. And it's not your fault, it's mine. Let's just go home.” He waited until Juliette was in the house with the door shut, and then another few minutes until the downstairs lights turned off before he pulled away from the curb. Monroe remained silent all the way home. Nick was honestly grateful when his work cell went off as they pulled into the driveway.

            “Burkhardt.” He listened to dispatch give out codes and drew out his little notebook to write down the address. “I'm on my way.” He turned to Monroe and gestured to the phone as if Monroe's hearing wasn't good enough to have picked up everything. “Homicide/robbery at a jewelry store. I have to go.”

            Monroe turned in his seat to face Nick. “Oh, my God. Which store?”

            “Bertram's,” Nick read, tipping the page to catch the light from the front porch.

            “No kidding! Man, I know the owner. He's a fuchsbau, sends me business when he gets a broken watch.”

            “Not anymore,” Nick said grimly.

            Monroe seemed honestly stricken by the news, but he hurried out of the car when Nick abandoned the driver's seat and jogged back into the house for his gun and badge. He didn't typically leave them home when he went anywhere, but he hadn't been planning on Juliette's visit.

            It was going to be a long night.


	6. Whatsoever I Desire is Mine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay, less talking - kinda. This is also the last chapter that follows along with the show, but if you're confused about anything going on, re-watch "Three Coins in a Fuchsbau." 
> 
> As of next chapter, we'll be completely diverged from the series. :)
> 
> Thank you to everyone following along and being patient.

Chapter Six:

Whatsoever I Desire is Mine

 

            The roar of a crowd woke him. Sean blinked up at his darkened ceiling and listened irritably to all the racket. The price he paid for top of the line security and a central location was being right in the middle of the cultural center of Portland. He listened for a moment, trying to recall if he'd heard anything about any festivals or celebrations, but he was coming up blank. It was a dull, banked roar, but it was somehow melodic as well, like a chant.

            His bedroom door opened and Adalind walked in dressed for business. Despite the short skirt, she somehow managed to kneel and make it look elegant. “My liege, sorry to disturb you,” she said diffidently. “A crowd has formed and they're calling for you. It might be best to appease them.”

            Sean was still trying to figure out why Adalind was in his bedroom in the first place, so it took him several seconds to process what she'd said.

            “They're _calling_ for me?”

            “Yes, my lord. I can attempt to send them away if you please, but Nick already made the mistake of stepping outside to see what the noise was about.” Her voice was filled with a fond sort of annoyance.

            “Nick?” he asked, baffled.

            “Yeah, yeah, I know. Stop going out on the balcony.” Nick ambled into the room in a pair of low slung cotton pants and nothing else. The light caught his body as he passed into the cone of illumination from the window. Brutal, twisting, gorgeous tattoos snaked up from beneath the waist of his pants and curled sinuously over every ripple of muscle as they slid beneath his arms and appeared again over his shoulders. Sean felt an instant desire to reach out and trace every bold black line with his tongue.

            Adalind seemed to notice. “If you don't mind, my king, you two can make gooey eyes at each other later. Can you get dressed and go wave to the crowd before they turn into a mob?”

            Ignoring her, Nick fell into bed next to Sean and snuggled into his side with a snuffling sigh.

            Adalind rose out of her kneel gracefully and planted her fists on her hips. “Please?” she tried.

            “Better go do it,” Nick mumbled. “They get worried when they see me without you. Just in case I might have beheaded you in your sleep or something.”

            Nick lifted one arm so Sean could get out of bed, but Sean couldn't resist leaning into him instead and tucked his face into Nick's neck. He smelled fantastic; a combination of soap and pine and something cool like snow.

            “Don't start that or you'll never make it out before they go mob,” Nick ordered, pushing him away.

            Sean considered staying in bed and letting the crowd turn into a mob. He didn't know exactly what was going on, but having a warm, _tattooed,_ and enthusiastically willing Nick Burkhardt in his bed was not something he wanted to chance disappearing if he turned his back.

            Nick shoved him again. “Go. I'll be waiting right here when you get back,” he promised sleepily, reaching out to snag Sean's pillow and drag it into his chest.

            Reluctantly, Sean climbed out of bed. Adalind stood at the foot of the bed with an ornate robe held out for him. He slid into it and cinched it around his hips. She proceeded him into the living room and then to the double doors that led to his balcony. Moving with appropriate ceremony, she pushed both doors open and then stepped back so Sean could move past her. The street below was filled to bursting with people and wesen, standing side-by-side, many wesen in full woge. They all cheered for him, human and wesen alike, screaming his name and waving flags carrying his symbol.

            A feeling of great accomplishment and pride welled up in him. He lifted his arms and the sound only intensified, swelling to a cacophony and then catching a rhythm. His name rose from the crowd like the voice of some ancient god. Nick chose that moment to make a second appearance, slipping out behind him and wrapping long inked arms around his waist.

            The Grimm planted his forehead between Sean's shoulders and then rose on his toes and whispered, “Don't let it go to your head. You still belong to me, Sean Renard.”

 

~*~

 

            Sean woke with a deep moan. Morning light streamed in through the partially open blinds, and his bed was decidedly absent one warm Grimm. He reached out anyway, feeling the sheets beside him in a sudden rash hope that Nick was simply out of bed before him. They were cold and untouched, still crisp from the last time through the laundry. Sean felt a stab of disappointment and then of confusion.

            _What am I doing?_ He'd never known that Nick Burkhardt was on his list of possible bed partners anymore than he had realized Adalind apparently had the potential to be on the list. He'd guarded Nick since the man barely _was_ a man, looked after his interests, and kept him safe from Royals, Reapers, and wesen, not to mention plain human politicking. Sean guided his career, trained him, molded him. And if the tent in his crisp sheets was anything to go by, had apparently come to desire him as well.

            A tightness in his chest made him frown and he rubbed absently at it with one hand while his opposite hand fumbled blindly at the bedside table. Only when he felt three small impacts on his chest did he look down and realize that he’d picked up the coins. They lay benignly on his naked chest, and he suddenly felt so much better. The tightness vanished, the worry vanished, and he smiled as he lay remembering his dream. No, not his dream – his goal. His premonition. He knew as surely as he knew his own name that the day would come to pass when humans and wesen gathered to call out his name in adoration, and Nick Burkhardt shared his bed and his throne.

            But he couldn't just wait for that to happen. He had to _make_ it happen.

 

~*~

 

            After the rousing press conference, Hank and Nick approached Sean looking worried. No, Hank looked worried. Nick looked impressed.

            “Sir,” Hank started forestallingly as Sean reached for the door handle. Key members of the press were gathered in his office to hear his edicts. He would make the city safe, he and Nick together. “The coins never made it down to evidence last night. I can take them down for you if you forgot,” Hank offered.

            Sean glared at him. He wasn't stupid. He knew the detective was trying to steal what was his – his gold, his power, his Grimm. “I'm busy right now,” Sean said coldly. His tone would have been enough to send anyone with a sense of self-preservation running, but Hank actually opened his mouth to protest. “I'm busy,” Sean repeated.

            “Sir,” Nick tried, stepping forward. Sean felt his expression soften immediately. “We really don't mind running them down for you.”

            Nick understood. He was impressed by Sean and wanted to help him. Sean reached out and grabbed Nick's arm in a reassuring grip. He felt a sudden irritation at calling the press conference in the first place and bringing so many other people into his office. If he had just waited an hour, he could have had Nick on his desk, spread out and begging. In fact, what was stopping him? Nick would come willingly, he would be happy to show the humans how even he, a great Grimm, was willing to submit to Sean's will. The crowd would witness Sean's claiming of his Grimm. They would applaud at his power, his strength, his prowess-

            “Captain?” a reporter asked, interrupting his very pleasant image.

            _Not now,_ he reminded himself. Nick loved him and would wait for him. These petty humans had _much_ shorter attention spans. He repressed a sigh and locked eyes with his Grimm. Nick looked back fearlessly, gaze filled with love and admiration.

            “Later,” Sean promised. It was all he could do to smile his apology instead of leaning forward and kissing the other man as a down payment on the promise. Reluctantly, he let Nick go and pulled the door shut to address the human press.

 

~*~

 

            Hank stared at the closed door for a second. His gaze transferred to Nick, gently nursing the sore spot on his arm, and then back to the door. “The hell was that?”

            “We've got to get those coins, Hank.”

            “You're telling me!”

            “Alright, that will keep him busy for a few hours. I have Soledad Marquesa's last known location. I think we should check it out and see if there's anything we can find.”

            Hank nodded in wordless agreement, his eyes staying locked to the captain's door until they passed out of the room completely.

            “You okay?” Nick asked, touching his arm to get his attention.

            “Yeah... I just feel strange about all this. I don't know, Nick, but this town has definitely gotten weird. How can three coins cause something like that?” he asked, gesturing back toward the captain's office. “And when I had them, I felt like I was on top of the world. Untouchable. Like I could take on a lion and win with one hand behind my back.” Hank shook his head and scratched the back of his neck.

            “What are you saying?” Nick asked cautiously.

            “I don't know man. I don't know _what_ I'm saying, but it's weird.”

            “The weirdest,” Nick agreed faintly.

            At the hotel, a small woman in a housekeeper's uniform let them into the room. Nick expected the hotel manager to handle the situation personally, but the manager stuffily informed them that seeing an authority figure opening a guest's door would likely only cause distress, as if any of the guests could tell him apart from a bellboy.

            “Thank you,” Nick said by way of dismissal and she nodded, but hovered at the door until Nick let it close.

            “Alright, what are we looking for?” Hank asked, standing in the middle of the room with his hands on his hips.

            “Drugs, chemicals, something that could explain the coins' affect.” Hank knew that of course, but Nick wanted to continue to plant the idea that the coins were simply poisoned, not that they were cursed. Despite his feverish dream that he could tell Juliette about the creature world and make everything okay, Nick took Monroe's warning to heart and was trying to prevent his partner from going through the mind melting scenario. They both pulled gloves on and Hank disappeared into the bathroom. Nick riffled through the drawers and then got on his hands and knees to look under the bed.

            “I've got a suitcase,” he called out. Hank came out a moment later and they unzipped the suitcase and started removing the contents. An old film reel that looked like a match for the Kineclair projector in the trailer, and a box of documents. Nick glanced over the English document and felt a little bit of relief as he read aloud, “The coins are made of gold, arsenic, and mercury, and they are not to be handled under any circumstances.”

            Hank didn't look entirely convinced, but he tipped his head and moved to stand beside Nick so he could read over his partner's shoulder.

            “The Office of Strategic Services?”

            “Pre-CIA,” Nick answered absently. “These coins have been in circulation for a long time. Originally there were 10 of them...” That fit with what he'd learned already at the trailer, and he was honestly surprised to see the information replicated on a human governmental memo.

            “Whatever the cause, one thing is for sure – those coins are dangerous and we need to get them out of the captain's hands before he does something we're all going to regret.”

Nick agreed with a nod and replaced the documents in the box. “We should leave these items here in case Marquesa comes back,” he suggested. “We don't want to tip him off that we've been here.” Truthfully, Nick just wanted to be able to add the items to his collection, where they would be much more useful than sitting in a police evidence locker for the next decade and a half. There was nothing incriminating in any of the documents, and the film reel was so old it wasn't likely to be helpful in prosecuting Marquesa if they caught him.

            “Photograph it all,” was Hank's input after a second of consideration. They took precious minutes to lay the items out on the bed with evidence tags and take pictures with cell phones before packing it back up and rushing to the precinct. Nick called on the way in to have Farley Colt moved back to interrogation. He still wasn't sure what to do with the man and his wild story of loving a woman who left to take care of her nephew after the child's parents died in a car accident in Rhinebeck, New York in March 1994. It was all too coincidental, but Nick didn't see how the man could have possibly had the time or the access to research Nick's background after he was assigned to the case.

            Captain Renard was still locked in his office with the press when they made it back to the bullpen, but there was enough movement visible through the blinds to suggest it was getting ready to break up.

            “I need to go talk to Farley Colt.”

            “Alright. As soon as the captain leaves I'll search the office.”

            What they were planning to do was dangerous. Not only could the captain have a very bad reaction if he caught them looking for – or taking- the coins, they could be exposing him to an investigation if word got out that a police captain was keeping evidence in his possession. Nick didn't think that Renard would have left them in his office, but he needed to talk to Colt alone and that was as good an excuse as any.

            “Be careful,” Nick said finally and hurried for the interview room.

            Colt sat calm as you please in the uncomfortable chair at the interview table. He ran one finger idly over the curve of the loop that could be used to cuff a suspect to the table. Colt glanced up at him when Nick opened the door, but he hardly gave Nick more than an incline of the head in acknowledgment.

            “You've been cleared by ballistics,” Nick confirmed. He would have liked to work this from a different angle, but he didn't have time. If those coins were as dangerous as he suspected they were, his captain wouldn't be sane, or possible even alive, much longer. Nick owed the man more than just the loyalty of a cop to his captain, and he wasn’t going to play mind games with Colt while Renard slipped further away. “I need to know what you know about these coins.”

            Colt glanced at the mirror with the observation room beyond and said nothing.

            “This is off the record, we're alone.” Nick leaned forward. “And this is not police work anymore. You should know a bit about my other job, right?”

            Taking a slow breath, Colt nodded. “So you checked out my story. You've had enough time to confirm at least some of it.”

            Taking a big leap of faith that could land him in a lot of trouble in a lot of ways, Nick leaned even closer to the man and told him, “When I was twelve, my parents died in a car accident in Rhinebeck, New York. My aunt moved me to California and raised me after that.” He watched Colt very carefully and got a flicker of genuine surprise.

            “You're Marie's nephew? But then...” The steinadler looked stricken. “When?”

            “Four months ago... almost five now.”

            Colt briefly covered his face with one hand. “I had hoped the rumors were...” he shook himself. “It doesn't matter. What matters now is that we need to get those coins. Some have more resistance to them than others, but I'm wagering from the look on your face that whoever has them now is not one of those individuals.”

            Nick shook his head. “No, I don't think so.”

            “Get me out of here. I can help you. I've been tracking those coins for the last eighteen years, I _know_ them.”

            Though Nick was already planning to release Colt when he stepped into the interrogation room, he still hesitated. A very selfish part of him wanted to keep Colt at his mercy so he could ask questions about his family, about his aunt and her secret life. It was such a tempting prospect, but it wasn't the time. Nick nodded and stood, gesturing to the door for Colt to precede him. The steinadler didn't so much as blink before he was out of the chair.

            “We have some things to talk about,” he promised in an undertone as he passed Nick through the door.

            Nick didn't respond, but the promise made that selfish gnawing part of him relax a little. He led Colt casually through the bullpen to the captain's office. The precinct was in an uproar over the press conference. Sean Renard was known for his tough stance on crime, but he let his policies be known mostly through results. He was famously taciturn with the media, reported as having a face for a television and no love of the camera. His statements were factual and concise, and though he was clearly charming, he kept his attention on the job rather than on political mongering. Such a strongly worded declaration from him seemed to mark some kind of turning point, and many were speculating already on the lunch of a political career. Those who weren't keeping an eye on the milling press were huddled in groups gossiping. It was pathetically easy to take Colt through the large room and slip into Renard's office.

            Hank jumped about a foot in the air, hastily slamming a drawer shut as the door opened.

            Without missing a beat, Colt declared, “The coins aren't here.”

            Hank gestured to Colt and gave Nick an incredulous look. “Seriously? What the hell, man?”

            “Ballistics cleared him and his story checks out. He's been looking for these coins a lot longer than we have-”

            “I can help you,” Colt interrupted to add. He met Hank's gaze levelly and didn't break eye contact until Hank reluctantly nodded. They set off together, moving quickly enough to look busy, but not so quickly as to draw attention to themselves.

            “Hey!” Wu stopped them. He gave Colt the briefest glance, but seemed to dismiss him out of hand. Nick would wonder about that later; he filed Wu's strange non-reaction away and then focused on the smaller cop. “Officer Brenner never checked in after last night's fiasco,” Wu said in a confidential voice, filled with barely suppressed rage. “They found his body in a hotel bathroom about twenty minutes ago.” Wu shook his head, angry and ashamed of the world, but Nick reached out and grabbed his arm briefly to stop him from leaving. He would feel the anger later, for now he had to keep focused.

            “Do you know where the captain went?”

            “He just left about five minutes ago for a meeting with the mayor.”

            “Thanks.”

            As they hurried away, Colt cursed briefly. “Soledad is in the building.”

            “With as many people as have been here today, he could have waltzed right in and no one who have batted an eyelash at him,” Nick confirmed. They picked up the pace as they turned for the parking garage.

            The tunnel to the garage was long and sloped gently downward. Nick moved along one wall swiftly with his gun held out and pointed low, keeping Hank in his peripheral vision. Colt was between them two of them, moving with a strange sort of grace that broadcasted danger even though the man was unarmed. Ahead of them, the lights flickered and then went out with a _pop!_ Nick heard a shuffle of boots and Hank's quiet curse as Colt glided to the front. Hank probably wouldn't have seen it even if Colt was looking him dead in the face, but the man shifted his eyes in a partial woge. The keen bird's eyes glowed in the faint illumination of the emergency lights. Nick wanted to yank him back, but Colt moved smoothly out of his range and Nick just had to go with his gut instinct and trust the wesen.

            With a silent exchange, Nick and Hank split up. A moment later, gunfire sounded in the echoing space and the sounds of a scuffle drew them back together. No time for finesse, Nick lowered his shoulder and body checked Soledad, ripping him off of Renard and sending them both tumbling through to the concrete. Hank approached quickly on his flank and Nick could hear Colt's no-nonsense voice as he tried to calm the panicking police captain.

            “You got him?” Nick asked, looking up at Hank. His partner nodded and Nick moved when Hank was in position to take over restraining the hysterical coin thief.

            “Let me hold them!” Soledad screamed. “Let me hold them again!”

            Another panicked shout of denial brought Nick quickly back to Renard's side. In a lightning fast movement, Renard reached up and grabbed Nick by his jacket.

            “They're gone, Nick!” Renard said in a panic. “He took them from me! Nick, Nick you have to help me find them! Please, Nick!”

            Nick didn't know what was more horrifying; the always calm Captain Sean Renard broken down into hysterics, or the intimate pleading. Nick was torn between wanting to smack the man to hopefully knock some sense back into him, and to hug him and tell him it was alright. He didn't think either course of action would go over well, but he also didn't think that it would be great for the cops already thundering down the tunnel to see their captain in such a state.

            “Come with me,” Nick said hurriedly. He tried to keep his voice soothing and Renard quieted immediately. He clutched Nick desperately as they made their way hurriedly to the back of Nick's SUV, three rows down. Fumbling with the keys, Nick got the hatch open and helped Renard onto the tailgate.

            “It's going to be alright,” Nick said firmly. Renard's face was glistening with sweat and his color suggested a fever, though that could have just as easily been from the weak light. Renard might not even realize he was awake or remember any of the potentially embarrassing situation. One could only hope.

            “They're gone. How am I going to win without them? My dream... the tattoos, the people...” Renard babbled.

            “Hey – you don't need those coins, Captain. After that press conference, the criminals of the city are shaking in their socks.” He had no idea what Renard meant by the tattoos or the people, but he kept up the streaming monologue until Renard finally quieted and caught his breath. He hissed and pushed a hand into his side, seeming to register pain for the first time. Nick pushed his hand away hurriedly and cursed at the dark stain spreading over Renard's white shirt.

            “I need a medic over here!” Nick shouted. Flashlights swerved in his direction and the clatter of footsteps heralded a half-dozen cops. “It's the captain, he's been shot. Get an EMT!” Nick ordered. About half of them left and the others remained a respectful distance away, milling uncertainly.

            “Nick,” Renard said softly. He leaned forward over his side and Nick had to ease in close to keep him from falling out of the SUV. Renard rested his head on Nick's shoulder. “The coins are gone. He took them.”

            “I know. It's alright,” Nick soothed again, but it was a struggle to keep the anger down. He didn't think that Soledad Marquisa was responsible for the missing coins and it hadn't slipped his notice that Colt was nowhere to be seen.

            It could have been his imagination, but he thought he felt the brush of the captain's mouth on his neck. Before he could decide whether it was a deliberate kiss or not, the lights came up and a pair of EMTs rushed over to take charge of the captain. Renard held onto him for a minute, but Nick was able to disguise the hold by helping Renard off the tailgate and onto the stretcher. He worried for a minute that Renard wasn't going to let him go, but the captain finally realized where he was and released his grip on Nick's arm as soon as he was steady on the stretcher.

            Nick watched them carry the captain away and then slammed the tailgate shut and made for the driver's door. He had a steinalder to catch up with, and probably not a lot of time to do it before the man vanished with those miserable coins.

 

~*~

 

            “I thought you might come for the case,” Nick greeted when the hotel door opened and Colt slipped in. Rather than starting guiltily, Colt gave Nick a nod in greeting and casually took of his coat.

            “Did you bring the box?”

            Thrown off balance Nick hesitantly lowered the gun. Colt reached into his jacket very slowly to draw the coins out. He dropped them negligently onto the bed and stepped back so Nick could snatch them up.

            “Sorry that I had to take off. I couldn't be caught up in the mess with the coins in my possession. Put them away please – they need to be shielded.” Despite his words, Colt's sharp eyes followed the progress of the coins with raptor like hunger. He shuddered, and then relaxed when Nick got all three coins into the lead lined box and latched it shut.

            “Your Grimm nature gives you a resistance to them, but don't make the mistake of believing that you are immune. Don't handle them with your bare skin if you can possibly avoid it and put them somewhere safe and out of sight. It wouldn't be a bad idea if you put that box inside another lead box, and if you can get someone to do spell work on it for you, even better.”

            Nick nodded slowly, eyebrows creased in confusion. This was not the encounter he was expecting when he realized that Colt had disappeared with the coins. Ignoring the still-drawn gun, Colt sank to the edge of the bed and sighed. His shoulders slumped and he pressed his fingertips into his temples.

            “I was hoping that she would still be here, waiting for me, when I finally recovered those damn coins,” Colt said in a tone that suggested he was talking more to himself than to Nick.

            “I'm sorry,” Nick said. He finally holstered the gun and reached out awkwardly to pat Colt's shoulder.

            Colt moved out from under Nick's hand and up the bed until he could rest his back against the headboard. He looked tired and sad.

            “Come.” Colt patted the bed next to him. “We have things to talk about.” When Nick didn't move, he pointed to the chair beside the bed instead. “At least sit down. I'd rather not strain my neck looking up at you.”

            Nick reluctantly sat, but he stayed on the edge of the chair, just in case. Colt noticed and smiled.

            “I wanted to raise you with her, you know.”

            Nick wasn't sure what he expected, but that wasn't it.

            “When we heard about your mother, we were less than a week away from the wedding. Your mother, a woman of very strong opinions I might addd, didn't approve of me. A Grimm marrying a steinadler!” He chuckled, but it was not a sound filled with mirth. “As far as I know she didn't even plan to acknowledge our wedding or attend. When we learned of her death, Marie left to take care of you. I wanted to go with her, I wanted us to be a family. She said that if Kelly couldn't stand the thought of her sister marrying a steinadler, she would roll over in her grave if she knew her son was being raised by one.”

            Colt shifted on the bed and cleared his throat. His eyes unfocused and for a moment he was lost to memory. “I never stopped loving her. She wouldn't let me near you, but I've been searching for those coins – and the man that killed your mother - ever since. I had hoped when I returned them to Marie, maybe it would buy your mother some peace and me my life back.”

            Nick frowned. “My parents died in a car accident.” He remembered Marie’s warning after the Reaper attack just fine, but he wasn’t about to give Colt anything if this was some kind of convoluted con.

            Colt eyed him steadily. “Your parents were murdered by Soledad Marquesa.” He nodded his head toward Nick's jacket and the concealed coins. “For those.”

            Nick shifted uneasily. He thought that he should have been instantly angry, but all of the secrets unfolding made it seem like someone else's parents, someone else's life. He didn't quite know how to react; something he'd believed for nearly twenty years was suddenly not right. Really, very little that he believed all of his life appeared to be correct.

            Finally realizing that Nick was not going to respond, Colt continued, “Marie wanted to give you a different life, a different choice than what she had growing up. Your grandfather trained Marie and Kelly to be warriors from the time they were old enough to hold a weapon. He trained them that all wesen were evil and needed to be eradicated. Marie wanted to give you a choice, but after her sister's murder, I think she had trouble believing that herself. From all accounts, she became the terror of the wesen world after your grandfather's image.” Colt shook his head sadly. “I think Kelly's death really broke something inside of her. I hardly ever saw her again.”

            “How did you two even meet?” It seemed unlikely to Nick that Aunt Marie could have fallen in love with this man if she had been indoctrinated from childhood to hate anything that wasn't human. He still struggled to think of her hating anything or anyone that much, but the evidence was stacking up against his memories of her.

            “She was the younger of the sisters, so she wasn't pushed quite as hard. Kelly had it much worse, got so much more of the attention. They hunted anything wesen and often brought home trophies – Marie hated it all. I was lucky that I met her during her idealistic teenage years, I suppose. I was being hunted by your mother and grandfather and ran into Marie. I recognized her for what she was, of course, and I was ready to fight – though I wasn't in much of a condition for it at the time – but she managed to convince me that she wanted to help. With her father and older sister minutes behind me, she had no reason to lie. She helped me escape and then she hid me from them until I recovered enough to move on. We fell in love.” He smiled genuinely. “She was only 15 at the time, and I was 18. She wanted to run away with me, but I convinced her to finish school. So I joined the military, she went through high school. I was there at her graduation ceremony and we ran away that night.”

            Nick absorbed the story slowly, trying to reconcile it with his aunt. She had never been short on love, but she was a hard woman who pulled no punches and did not suffer anything that could have be interpreted as a whine or a complaint. He had difficulty imagining her as an idealistic young girl who felt so strongly about this man that she would completely abandon her family.

            “She never trained me or even told me about the wesen world because she didn't want to prejudice me towards wesen?”

            Colt nodded. “If you'd lived with me, you would have had to know about the creature world.”

            “But... if you’d lived with us, you could have taught me that not all wesen were bad. I wouldn't have been left alone to figure all this out from some books and one friendly blutbad!”

            “I could have, and I would have been happy to do it.” Eyebrows climbing up his forehead, Colt added, “You've befriended a blutbad?”

            Nick nodded faintly and barely stopped himself from saying, 'we live together.' Colt hadn’t earned _that_ much trust.

            “I would have loved to have been there for you. I can't have children of my own, but I always wanted to be a father.”

            Choosing not to respond to that, Nick nonetheless wondered what it would have been like to grow up in a family with two 'parents,' with someone to act as a father figure where Marie had become his mother figure. How much of his life would have been different? And maybe Marie wouldn't have turned on the wesen world like she did if she had a wesen husband waiting for her at home.

            “This is too much to deal with right now and I need to...” He squeezed his arm tighter around the malformed lead-lined box.

            Colt nodded. “Those coins are dangerous, Nick. They are part of a Trust that the Royals placed in the care of the Grimms several centuries ago. Little short of a volcano will destroy them, though some have gone that way. Men, like Soledad Marquesa, will go insane trying to possess them. It consumes lives, Nick. Don't ever make the mistake of thinking that it's okay to just look at them, to just touch them for a while, to take them out to look at them closer, that you could just do so much good with them. You can't. They are not inherently evil, but they will pull out your deepest buried desires and show you how to make them a reality. No mortal can resist the pull of the power indefinitely, no matter how much of a natural resistance you have. It will always twist the user. Always.”

            Nick nodded tightly, feeling a strong urge to be as far away from the coins as he could. He remembered the crazed look in Captain Renard's eyes when he grabbed Nick's arm and shuddered faintly. “I'll keep them safe.”

            “Keep them safe, but keep them where you can see them. These coins draw people to them. Others have been dropped in the middle of oceans, or buried in pits so deep that the soil at the bottom has not seen light in the history of the planet. They always find their way back into human hands.”

            Nick nodded again and stood.

            “I do want to talk to you more, Nick. But it's probably a better idea for you to take those now. I might have built up something of a resistance of my own, but I am not immune. Don't ever tell me where you've hidden them.” He waited for Nick's acknowledgment and then asked, “Will you meet me later?”

            “I'm not sure. Maybe.” Nick edged away from the bed. He was unsure of how to handle Colt, who had nearly been his uncle, who knew more about his aunt and his parents than Nick ever had, but who was a total stranger otherwise. Nick was uncomfortable with the familiarity and ease between them.

            Colt looked like he wanted to protest, to wring some kind of promise out of Nick, but he just nodded instead. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a simple white card with a number printed on one side. He set the card on the end of the bed and leaned away from it. Nick appreciated not having to lean over the bed – or him – and picked the card up. He glanced at it briefly and slid it into his pocket.

            “One more thing,” Colt called just as Nick reached the door. “Marie put you under the protection of a prince years ago. You need to be careful. Call me if you ever need anything.”

            Nick froze and nearly turned back around, but the weight of the box against his ribs pushed him through the door instead. He reached into his pocket once in the hallway and felt for the card with Farley Colt's phone number written neatly on one side.

 

~*~

 

            Sean was conscious of Adalind's presence. Ever so often he forgot that he didn't have the coins anymore, and he would order her to send the crowd away, to go get Nick for him, to kneel at his feet. She sat silently at his bedside instead and periodically replaced the cool cloth on his forehead with a new one.

            “I hope you snap out of this soon,” she said in one of his lucid moments. “Frau Peche has arrived in Portland and she's looking for the coins and the key.”

            Sean had only a moment to seethe in anger that the banished hexenbiest was in his city, before his reasonable territorial anger turned to abject fury that anyone would dare hunt _his_ coins. He slipped back into a semi-darkness, vaguely aware of the deplorable way he was behaving, but unable to stop himself from screaming for the coins, for Nick, lamenting those beautiful tattoos, and sobbing over the aching emptiness in his chest. Adalind reminded by his side throughout the night, occasionally playing along when he got too emphatic, and other times merely staring at him in silence until he dropped back into an uneasy sleep.

 

~*~

 

            When Sean woke the next morning, his mind was clear for the first time in days. His behavior of the last several days came back like a bad movie montage and he felt his face flush. He combed over his memory to see if he'd actually said anything incriminating to Nick. Other than a few suggestive looks and his mortifying begging in the parking garage, he didn't think...

            Sean groaned, remembering Nick propping him up on the tailgate of an SUV while Sean made a concerted effort to mouth his neck. Sean covered his face with his hands, remembering at once the pleasant firmness of Nick's skin beneath his lips, the spicy, masculine sent of him-

            “You're awake. Are you aware as well?” Adalind asked briskly as she entered the room. She carried a tray with a bowl and a bottle of water between her hands. When Sean didn't immediately answer, she sighed in irritation and said, “There is no crowd, Nick Burkhardt is not coming back to bed, and no, I will not kneel for you every time I enter the room. Please sit up, sir, you need some fluids.”

            “Adalind, I'm fine,” Sean croaked finally.

            “Oh, good.” She gave him a look of unbridled relief and set the tray on the side table. Sean eased himself up to a sitting position; it took so much effort and concentration to get all of his limbs to work together long enough to manage it that he momentarily forgot how positively mortified he was over the whole incident. He reached for the bottle and Adalind obligingly unscrewed the cap and slipped a bright pink bendy straw into it.

            “Are you sure you're feeling better? Three days of hearing you call for _Nick_ was quite enough.”

            Sean paused and pulled away from the straw. “Three _days_?”

            Adalind gave him a saccharine smile. “It's a good thing I have power of attorney as was able to check you out of the hospital, or the whole precinct would know all about your little crush on one of your detectives.”

            Sean grunted, too tired and too far past humiliated to feel appropriately concerned. He pulled large swallows of the room temperature water in an effort to ease the painful dryness in his throat. After the initial relief of the liquid, he realized that it tasted faintly of salt and honey and guessed that Garza must be nearby mixing up his electrolyte drink. Once he handed it back to Adalind, she put the tray over his lap and handed him a large spoon. The bowl contained a nearly clear broth that smelled of vegetables and looked weak. He took a spoonful and admitted that the weakness of the broth was probably not a bad idea as his stomach gave a hesitant jerk. He waited a moment to see if it would come back up, but his stomach apparently decided to accept the offering.

            “So,” Adalind started after he'd managed a few more spoonfuls, “Nick Burkhardt?”

            Sean used the excuse of another spoonful to cover his discomfort. “It was the coins,” he said, but the excuse sounded weak even to him.

            Adalind gave him a pointed look. “You know as well as I do how those coins work.”

            Sean sighed and let the spoon rest in the bowl. He was quite for a minute and then admitted, “I didn't notice it happening.”

            “He's powerful, attractive, and you've been intimately involved with his life for more than a decade, even if he didn't know it. It makes sense.” She sounded a little disappointed, but not unduly bitter. Sean made a mental note to keep an eye on that. She smiled after a moment of visible internal struggle and her expression turned mischievous. “You should pursue him then.”

            Sean snorted and abandoned the spoon altogether. He was still hungry, but felt weak as if he'd just come out of a long illness, and he didn't want Adalind to see the spoon shaking in his hand. Adalind didn't buy it and scooted to the edge of her chair to pick the spoon up for him. He wanted to protest, but he _was_ hungry, so he let it go.

            “You should,” she pressed after a few mouthfuls and then held the spoon hostage until he fessed up and answered her.

            “I arranged to have his beloved aunt killed, Adalind.”

            “He doesn't need to know that.”

            “He _will_. Eventually he will put it together on his own, but I intend for him to hear it from me first.”

            Adalind scoffed. “Such a soft answer.” When Sean glared at her, she rolled her eyes and continued feeding him mouthful by mouthful until the bowl was empty. He would have liked more, but he was familiar enough with the fragile state a strong curse or enchantment left a body in, so he didn't ask. Throwing up was not high on his list of favorite things to do.

            Before she could try to continue the conversation, Sean asked, “Do I remember hearing you say that Frau Peche is in town?”

            “She's here for the key, and since our very own darling Grimm happens to also now most likely be in possession of three very interesting coins, rumor is that the coins would be her payment for retrieving the key.”

            Sean cursed softly. He'd been stalling the family for years, promising that he was pulling the Grimm-to-be into his court, and when Nick inherited his powers he would be so deep under Sean's influence that he would probably just hand the key over without Sean having to ask. It seemed his bluff had finally been called and his margin of safety to remain anonymous to the wesen population was getting critically small.

            “Put a _very discreet_ eye on Nick. Make sure they know where he is at all times. As soon as it is safe to do so, you and I are going to go ward that trailer. We should have done so weeks ago.”

            “And how are you going to explain to him that he needs to put his own blood on the ward to get the door open?”

            “I have his fingerprints. They're not ideal, but they'll work for now. You've gotten Monroe's?”

            It was something of a headache to plan around when they realized that Nick gave Monroe access to the trailer alone.

            “Yes.”

            Sean nodded. “Hopefully he won't give anyone else access to until I've introduced myself properly. Put a detail on Monroe as well, and get word to that den of eisbiber about Frau Peche having it out for Nick. Chances are good that they'll send out the word, and Nick's fan club will pitch in on the security. They may even just give Nick the warning, and all the better if they do.”

            Adalind nodded, all business. She set the tray back on the bedside table and pulled her cell phone out as she stood. She dialed with one hand and stuck the other out the bedroom door, snapping her fingers several times to get someone's attention. Sean was just working his way out of the bed when Cualli Garza, a balam and a member of his court, ambled in dressed in blue scrubs.

            “Sir,” he greeted with an infectious smile, “How are you feeling today?” Garza was an attractive young man with a wide face and dark eyes that glittered with perpetual good humor as if he always had some secret joke just behind his lips. He was also a nurse at Legacy Emmanuel hospital and Sean's private caretaker whenever he was injured badly enough to need one (or at least the semblance of one). Usually Garza's stints as his in-home nurse consisted of sitting on the couch and catching up with his favorite television shows while Sean laid low and pretended to convalesce at a normal human rate. He also got paid very well for his television vacation, but Sean didn't mind. The balam was very pleasant company.

            Not needing to pretend weakness after the latest brush with near-destruction, Sean was grateful for Garza and his strength. Sean was too tired to even protest as Garza slipped a strong arm around his back and helped him to his feet. Together they hobbled to the bathroom.

            “I'm surprised I didn't wake up connected to a dozen tubes,” Sean joked.

            Garza laughed. It was a beautiful, warm sound that made Sean smile despite his worry and general embarrassment. It was stupid on his part to think that he would be able to resist, let alone control the coins.

            “I was all for connecting you to a dozen tubes and tying you down, believe me. You've been a handful! For the most part you've been lucid enough to take care of business when necessary, but you've been getting yourself into trouble. I caught you on the balcony twice and had to promise to placate the masses and go fetch Nick before you would go back inside.”

            By that point, Sean couldn't possibly feel more embarrassed, so he just laughed. He'd been put into a gown at some point, so using the facilities was not as harrowing a process as it could have been. Garza helped him out of the gown afterward and into a cool bath. It was only a few inches of water to protect the bandage on his side, but it felt like heaven to him.

            “This isn't how I normally enjoy you naked,” Garza teased.

            “Nor how I normally enjoy you enjoying me naked,” Sean responded. Garza was an infrequent lover, short trysts that usually began and ended with Sean's convalescent periods.

            Garza gently ran a soft cloth over his chest and shoulders, keeping the bandage as dry as possible, though it would need to be changed anyway.

            “Would 'Nick' be Nick Burkhardt, one Grimm, by any chance?” Garza asked after a moment with casual interest.

            Sean watched him carefully for several long seconds before he answered by asking, “Have you turned to jealousy, Garza?”

            Garza laughed with genuine mirth. “I'm a cat, man. You don't need to worry that I'm going to go possessive on you like some rabid blutbad. But is a Grimm really a good idea?”

            “Nothing will come of it,” Sean said dismissively. It was apparently his day for examining his motivations and desires. “And I do hope that this is something I won't hear from anyone else's lips?”

            “I'm offended that you even have to warn me.” Garza said it lightly enough, but his body took on a certain quality of reserve.

            Sean reached out with a weak hand and squeezed the back of the balam's neck. His grip wasn't as strong as he would have liked, but Garza started to purr regardless. “Habit of being raised in a Royal family. The paranoia is hard to break,” he said by way of apology. “And I would kiss you to make up for it, but if my breath smells half as bad as it tastes, that probably wouldn't be pleasant.”

            Garza rose to his knees and smiled again. He reached over the counter for Sean's toothbrush and mint toothpaste. “Let's just fix that then, shall we?”

 


	7. The Evil I Have Done

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As of this chapter, we are completely diverged from canon and won't catch back up to the show from here on out.

Chapter Seven:

The Evil I Have Done

 

            Frau Peche sat at the breakfast bar in a charming suburban house and sipped at a glass of port while Catherine Schade busied herself at the oven.

            “You won't find a lot of support in the wesen community,” Catherine said, bending down to pull a pot pie out of the oven. She looked very much like a suburban housewife with suburban children and a suburban husband who worked as an accountant at a very boring place. Of course, she was none of these things, but she did pull off the look so well.

            “To hunt down a Grimm?” Peche asked, unable to suppress an incredulous laugh.

            “This Grimm is popular enough on his own – saving wesen, only hunting down those who are breaking the prince's rules. Which of course brings up another point.” She turned with a plate in either hand and waited until Peche chose the one she wanted before pulling out a pair of forks. “He's under the protection of Portland's Prince.”

            “That upstart?” Peche pursed her lips and rolled her eyes. “He isn't even a proper ruler, hasn't so much as introduced himself to the creatures he professes to rule. He doesn't have true Laws.”

            “True Laws or not, he enforces the few commands he hands out, and none have fared well against him where the Grimm is concerned. Not to mention you've got a price on your head that could make any wesen a very happy creature.”

            Peche made a note of Catherine's tone, but she wasn't concerned that the other hexenbiest would try to collect on the bounty. They were coven sisters and half-sisters by blood. She ignored the comment and asked, “Why _is_ he so concerned with this Grimm? This is fantastic by the way.”

            Catherine gave her a pleasant suburban smile. “Thank you. And I don't know what his fascination is with the Grimm, but when Marie Kessler died, the prince instantly put out a warning to all creatures that the Grimm was off limits. Nearly a dozen wesen disappeared that first week – the troublemakers who thought to take out a budding Grimm before he had his feet under him. Not to mention that Reaper he sent packing.” Catherine grinned a genuine smile and Peche couldn't help but join her – she wasn't overly found of Reapers herself and was privately pleased when she heard of one of their best limping back to court sans one ear.

            “Yet I understand that it was under his orders that the Grimm Marie Kessler was killed?”

            “Yes.”

            Peche tipped her head and watched Catherine. “Strange, don't you think?”  

            Catherine shrugged. “This new Grimm is turning out to be no Marie Kessler. As long as he continues to be a friend to the wesen community, you won't find many who are willing to disobey the prince's command.”

            “Well, I'm sure I can manage something on my own,” Peche said finally. She had hoped that she could stir the wesen community into a froth to keep the Grimm distracted and was disappointed to realize that they would not be so obliging, but, as her mother always said, there was more than one way to eat a fool's heart.

 

~*~

 

            Though he'd barely been gone two months, the home he once shared with Juliette seemed foreign. He sat down at the kitchen table, fingers automatically playing over the familiar scars, and yet not feeling at home. Juliette set a mug of coffee down in front of him and sat at the opposite end of the table with a clear glass of tea. The coffee cup was his favorite, but as he looked down on it, he had the disturbing impression of being handed a forgotten childhood toy.

            They sat in miserable silence for several moments. Juliette was dressed for work and he knew from long experience that she would need to leave soon to make it there on time. He considered waiting until she left, but he had been cowardly enough with her already.

            “We're going to have to sell,” Juliette said finally. “It's too much space for me by myself.”

            Nick looked up. “Where are you going to go?”

            “I've been looking at apartments and rentals close to work.” She tapped her fingernails against her cup and silence fell again. Nick just didn't know what to say to her.

            “Nick-” Juliette started, but stopped and closed her eyes. She swallowed hard and then looked at him with obvious effort. “I have to know – what did I do wrong? What can – what can some _guy_ offer you that I can't? Besides the obvious.” She said the last in a muttered aside.

            It wasn't a conversation that he wanted to have with his ex-girlfriend. Nick squirmed uncomfortably, but he owed her some honesty.

            “Do you know what the Kinsey scale is?” he asked finally.

            Juliette looked perplexed and she shrugged, but nodded anyway. The shrug was Juliette's tell when she was uncomfortable.

            “Zero to six, right?” When she nodded again, he spread his hands on the table and said, “I'm a five. So you didn't do anything _wrong_. I didn't do anything wrong. At least,” he hastened to add, because there was a lot that he'd done wrong, “At least as far as my sexuality goes. If you walk away believing anything about me, please believe that I do love you and I wish, I really do, that I could have been a zero and everything would have been perfect.”

            “So it's just... it's just the sex? I could...” She swallowed hard and made a nebulous gesture towards her lap. Her face flushed bright red when realization dawned and Nick's eyes widened.

            Nick felt his face go just as warm and was even more ashamed with himself for lying to this strong, compassionate woman. He believed that she would put on a strap on for him, and that she would try to hold their relationship together, and they would both be miserable and resentful for it eventually. “Oh, Juliette. No, it's not just the sex. Touching you was never a chore.” Except that sometimes it was – maybe not a chore exactly, but he felt pressured to behave like a “normal” man with her, and some nights it was challenging to act “normal” when he was really craving being held down and -

            “Then what is it? You say you love and you like touching me, so what is it that makes you gay? What do you find attractive about a man that isn't attractive about me?”

            “Are you sure you want answers to those questions?” Nick asked miserably.

            “Yes!”

            Nick stared down at his cup so he wouldn't have to look at her. “I like beard stubble, and a strong jaw. I like a man who is taller than I am, heavier than I am. I like a man I can be rough with and who can be rough with me.” He'd never spelled out his preferences before, but that was it in a nutshell. His few brief dalliances had inevitably been with men who were older, taller, heavier, and who didn't mind a little wrestling and shoving.

            Juliette made a choking noise and Nick winced. “Well, I asked for it,” she said shakily. “But you said it wasn't about just sex.”

            “It's not, but... Juliette, I've always been too afraid to be in an open relationship with man, to have any real relationship at all. Aunt Marie didn't react well when I told her, and then we moved to Portland. That should have been a new beginning for me in a bigger town, but I decided I wanted to be a cop and I didn't think that being in a relationship with another boy would help me get into the police academy, or stay alive once I made it onto the force. I've recently begun to realize that maybe I don't have quite as much to worry over as I thought.”

            “Does anyone other than me and Monroe know?”

            “Hank does. I told him the night we – the night I walked out.”

            Juliette processed this with her brows and lips scrunched up in a display of exactly how unhappy she was with the whole conversation and everything about their situation. “Did you ever... with a man, while we were together?”

            “No. I never cheated on you, not with anyone. I really wanted to make it work, Juliette. I thought if I just wanted it enough, if I just tried hard enough, that I could make it work. And it was _almost_ perfect.” None of this was taking into account all the wesen he’d made enemies of recently, and he couldn’t exactly tell her that his hand was forced to keep her safe, that maybe he would have stayed with her and lied for years if not for Marie’s revelation.

            Juliette looked like she was going to say something, but she stopped and thrust herself to her feet. She crossed the kitchen to dump her untouched tea in the sink. All things considered, Nick thought he was lucky that she hadn't dumped it into his lap.

            “I have to go. I'll make an appointment with a realtor this weekend.”

            She didn't even look at him as she gathered her things and left through the kitchen door. Nick listened to her car door slam, and then the sound of the engine turning over and the crunch of the tires on the driveway as she left.

            “Smooth,” he congratulated himself.

 

~*~

 

            “Another weird one,” Hank said, shaking his head. He planted his hands on his hips and tipped his head back to look up in the tree. The body of a short-haired young woman hung by her ankles from one of the middle limbs. Her eyes were carefully replaced with mirrors and mouth sewed shut with heavy black thread. The poor girl's arms were removed at the shoulder, her ribcage opened up from the back and pulled out to give her a pair of grotesque wings. Swirling blue lines painted her entire naked body.

            “What sick mind comes up with this shit?” Hank asked angrily. A forensics tech was up on a ladder taking pictures of the body, and a veritable ant swarm of techs walked carefully around the tree, setting out forensics tags and taking pictures of the organs the killer left on the ground around the body. Both lungs, her heart, and one eye had been found so far.

            Nick shook his head, unable to answer. This one wasn't so cut and dry as a wesen; unfortunately, it could just as easily be a sick human as a freaky creature. “Who found the body?” he asked, turning to Wu, who hovered at his elbow.

            Wu consulted his pad. “A Mrs. Olivia Franklin. Says she was out walking her dogs when one of them came back with something strange in his mouth. When she got it away from him, it turned out to be a human eyeball. She threw it somewhere over there -” He pointed towards the bushes where a harried CSI waded into the brambles. “And then felt something land on her forehead. When she looked up, she found our victim swinging in the breeze. And because that’s not creepy enough, it was blood dripping on her face.” Wu lifted his lip at his pad and shook his head in disgust.

            “Where is Mrs. Franklin?”

            Wu gestured towards an ambulance where Nick finally noticed a haunted woman in a pink jacket sitting on the back of the ambulance, staring wide-eyed at nothing in particular. Nick nodded to dismiss Wu back to his work and gestured for Hank to join him.

            “Mrs. Franklin?” Nick called quietly to get her attention. She turned her face towards him, but her eyes remained locked on the same blank space. Nick knelt down in front of her. He gently waved a hand in front of her face until her eyes focused and she looked at him. “Hi, Mrs. Franklin?” She nodded slowly, as if she'd had to think about it. “I'm Detective Burkhardt. This is Detective Griffin. Can we ask you some questions?” She hesitated, but then nodded again. “What time were you out walking your dogs this morning, Mrs. Franklin?”

            “I.... Oh, the dogs. Where are -?” She looked down and realized that her dogs – a beagle and a golden lab- were sitting on the ground at her feet. She had their leashes clenched in her hands. Olivia swallowed hard and nodded again. “Yes, the dogs and I were out walking this morning. We always do before I go to work. I'm a 4th grade teacher,” Olivia explained, but she was no longer looking at Nick.

            Nick glanced up to make sure Hank was taking notes. “What time do you usually go for your walk, Mrs. Franklin?”

            “6 am, usually, but I went late today because there's no school. Maybe I left at 7?” she guessed.      “Do you always come through this park?”

            “Yes, same path every day. The dogs need a routine,” she mumbled.

            “Did you see anyone else while you were out walking this morning?” Nick asked gently. “Maybe someone going the opposite direction, or walking quickly?”

            Olivia shrugged and frowned as she struggled to remember. “There was a man walking a pit bull,” she said after a moment. “The dog tried to go after my Sadie.” At the sound of her name, the golden lab looked up at her master. “And... a woman. She had on a black coat, but she was walking away from me. She didn't have any dogs.”

            “Do you remember seeing or hearing anything else?”

            Olivia's eyes went wide and her breath caught. “I saw my own reflection,” she hissed, starting to hyperventilate. “In her eyes, I saw my own reflection staring back at me! It was like she could _see my soul_!”

            The traumatized woman jerked in an involuntary spasm, and then another. The waiting EMT rushed over and Nick got out of his way. Both dogs started barking and Hank moved in to take the leashes from the panicking woman and drag the dogs away.

            Nick called over a uniformed officer to take over the dog wrangling. He and Hank moved away from the sudden bed of activity around the ambulance as the woman started screaming and the EMT's partner rushed around the ambulance to help subdue her.

            “Well that doesn't give us much to work on,” Nick said after a moment, his jaw tight with anger. Whoever was responsible for the dead girl and this traumatized woman was going to pay. “Let's get some uniforms canvasing the area. This is a small park, and our man with the pit bull might live in the neighborhood.”

            “And we can't exactly run down a woman in a black jacket,” Hank agreed.

 

~*~

 

            Four hours later, Nick’s knuckles were sore from rapping on doors without a single piece of useful information to show for it.

            “Alright, that's the last on this block,” Nick said into his phone, jogging down the front steps.          On the other end of the line and two streets over, Hank said, “I've got one more. Nothing useful so far. Hang on, I'm getting a call from the station.” Nick listened to the silence of Hank's phone for a moment while he walked down the street. “We've got an ID on our vic,” Hank announced. “One Anna Romero, reporting missing this morning. She was last seen leaving work last night around five pm, and missed a date with her boyfriend at six-thirty. When she didn't come home all night, he came into the station this morning to report her missing.”

            “Which would have gotten the twenty-four hours speech...” Nick prompted.

            “Except that the security guard at her place of work reported that he witnessed a woman being pushed into a car last night,” Hank said tightly.

            “Oh, great. Who went out there last night?”

            “Didn't catch it. We're meeting the security guard over at her work in an hour.”       

            “Why an hour?” Nick started jogging when he heard the car door shut through the line and the engine turn over.

            “Because it's all the way across town. _All the way_.”

 

~*~

           

            The security guard was a whipcord slender young man with a nervous face. He was obviously uncomfortable talking to the police, and Nick guessed that he was regretting calling in what he saw the night before. It made the cop in Nick instantly suspicious, but he tempered it with experience – the kid was just as likely shy and not pleased about all the attention, not to mention perhaps feeling guilty for not going to the young lady's aid.

            “I didn't really see nothing,” Vincent said for fourth time. “I was on my break, just having a smoke. I heard some fighting and looked over, and just saw this woman getting pushed into a van. Then the van drove away in a hurry. I called the cops right away, man, swear.”

            Hank nodded. Keeping his voice soothing, he asked, “Did you see who pushed her into the van?”

            Vincent groaned. “No, it was way across the parking lot and there were lots of cars in the way.”

            “You didn't see anything about that person at all? Were they tall? Did it look like man or a woman? Can you remember the clothing? Anything?” Hank prompted.

            Vincent made an irritated noise, a loud huff of breath through his nose. “Maybe... I don't know, not really tall, but not short either. Just dressed all in black with a hoddie on. Coulda been a kinda tall woman, or a kinda short man.”

            Hank nodded while Nick jotted the fairly useless description down. “What about the van?”

            “It was kinda old, like a yellow color. There weren't no license plate.”

            They tried a few more questions, but Vincent had no new information to impart and started dancing in place like he had to go to the bathroom. Hank finally let him go after warning him to stay available for questions and to call if he thought of anything else.

            “What a squirrely kid. Think he's got something to do with it?”

            Nick shrugged. “Could be that he knows something, but could also be that he just doesn't like cops. Where did Anna work?”

            Hank gestured across the parking lot. “There. Mouse Books. Do you want to go talk to the owner, and I'll start asking at the other businesses to see if we have any surveillance cameras or anyone who may have seen something?”

            “Sure.” Nick nodded and tucked his notebook back into his pocket. They parted ways, Nick glancing briefly around the parking lot before jogging to Mouse Books.

            The middle-aged man behind the counter smiled brightly when Nick opened the door to a little chime. He was comfortably rotund, with round cheeks and a smile that would have made Santa Claus proud. “Hello there! May I help you find anything?”

            Nick gave him a tight smile. “I'm looking for the owner.”

            “Well, you're in luck! Here I am! My name is George Nickles.” He grinned even brighter and stood up straight and proud.

            “I'm Detective Nick Burkhardt, Portland PD. Do you know this woman?” Nick asked, taking out the photograph of Anna Romero provided her by her boyfriend.

            The shop owner frowned for a moment, but put on a pair of glasses and reached across the counter to take the photograph. “Well, yes, that's Anna.” His forehead immediately creased in concern. “She hasn't come into work yet today, and it's very unlike her. She's never been late before. Is she alright?”

            Nick really hated this part. He gave George a sympathetic look and said, “I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but Anna was found dead this morning.”

            George backed up quickly, soft hands flying to his face. “Oh, no! Not Anna!”

            All things considered, Nick shouldn't have been surprised that George Nickles, owner of Mouse Books, was a mauzhertz, but the sheer number of wesen living in the city startled him. He wasn't surprised at all when the wesen backed quickly away from him and held up both hands in fear.

            “Please don't, please! I didn't do anything, I wouldn't ever hurt Anna!”

            Nick took a slow breath and glanced over at the door to make sure Hank wasn't coming in just in time to see someone cowering in front of him. “I'm not going to hurt you,” Nick soothed. “I'm not that kind of Grimm. I just want to find out what happened to Anna.”

            The mauzerhertz slowly lowered his arms, but he didn't leave the perceived safety of the wall. “Anna is my goddaughter.” His face crumpled. “Was,” he amended with a sob.

            “Was she a mauzerhertz as well?” Nick asked, pronouncing it like he hadn't just learned it two weeks ago.

            George nodded miserably. “Oh, how am I going to tell her mother? I was supposed to keep her safe!”

            “Do you know of anyone... or any _thing_ that might have wanted to hurt her?”

            “No, no. Anna is... was just beautiful. She was so friendly and outgoing for a mauzerhertz, and she loves to read. She spent most of her time here at the shop and when she wasn't here, she was either with her boyfriend or reading at home. Just a lovely girl.”

            Nick nodded encouragingly. “What about her boyfriend? How long have they been together?”

            “Six years. They were betrothed as children, but they fell in love before they even knew about the betrothal. James just adores her, and he's a good kid. He works at a coffee shop down the street.”

            “Also a mauzerhertz?” Nick asked.

            “He's a reinigen, actually, but we don't hold it against him.” He smiled weakly, some kind of private joke that Nick obviously didn't get. He had to wrack his brain for reinigen, and then remembered – rats. An interesting pair.

            “What is James' last name and where does he work?”

            “Uh, James Markowitz. He works at the Coffee Stop Express just three blocks down on the left.”

            Nick made a quick note of both the name and the coffee shop. He and Hank stopped there for coffee on the way to meet Vincent, but there was only a young girl behind the counter. “What time did you go home last night?”

            “I wasn't here at all yesterday. It was mine and my wife's twenty-second anniversary,” George said sadly. “Anna ran the store for me all day by herself. She took lunch here and would have closed up at about five.” He hesitated, but asked, “What happened to her?”

            Nick didn't think that gentle George Nickles would want all the grisly details, but if this was someone hunting down mauzerhertz specifically, then the community should know to be vigilant. “She was taken out of the parking lot after work last night, killed somewhere, and then hung in a tree across town.”

            “But... why?” George asked, horrified and bewildered.

            “I don't know. Please tell your people to be safe and watchful. I have no real reason to suspect that there is someone out there hunting mauzerhertz at this time, but that's not a reason for you not to be cautious. Try not to travel alone if you can help it, and get the word out to the wesen community that there's a killer on the loose.” Nick pulled out one of his cards. “If anyone sees anything strange, you call me.”

            George took the card almost reverently and nodded. Nick turned to leave, but the mauzerhertz came around the counter and stopped him with a hasty, “Detective Burkhardt?”

            When Nick turned around, he took a step back, but didn't retreat behind the counter again. “I heard that you were... different. Like the Grimms of old. I didn’t really believe it, but…” He swallowed. “We need you. And word is going around the community that there's a hexenbiest in town who is after you – so please stay safe.”

            Nick was both startled and touched by the man's concern. “Adalind Schade, yes I know.”

            “No, not Miss Schade. Her name is Frau Peche, and she's a nasty one. Just thought I would warn you.”

            “Thank you, George. Keep your family and your people safe, and call me if you need to.”

            Nick thought there was a chance he might regret that offer, remembering Bud and his friends stalking him and Juliette after their first meeting, but he couldn't just turn his back on these people either.

            Hank met him outside. “Anything useful?”

            “I don't think the shop owner had anything to do with it. Anna was his goddaughter and he wasn't here at all yesterday – his and his wife's anniversary, and he doesn’t really look like he could get a healthy young woman tied up in that tree. We should talk to the wife though, just to be safe. He did say that Anna and her boyfriend, one James Markowitz, have been together about six years -” he decided to leave out the part about childhood betrothal, “and that he is nuts for her. Other than that, apparently she splits her time between the book store, James, and reading. How about you?”

            “Three of the businesses have working security cameras, but none face the parking lot. I've got a list of who was working last night, but not one who is here now. Most of them recognized our victim, but didn't have much to say about her. Said she was quiet, didn't come out of the shop much, but she always had a smile and a hello for anyone she crossed paths with. Sounds like a real sweetheart.”

            “Yeah,” Nick agreed. He really wished he could share the possible angle that it was some other kind of wesen hunting down a mauzerhertz, and that he could bring up the childhood betrothal, and the fact that her boyfriend was a reinigin. All were aspects that could play strongly into the case, but none of them were things that he could share with Hank.

            “But someone went through a lot of trouble to make her dead,” Hank summed up. “And not just normal dead, but weird dead.” Hank shook his head. “Something is not right about this case.”

            “We have a woman who had her eyes cut out and replaced with mirrors, and her ribs ripped out through her back, before being hanged upside down in a tree. Which part is hitting you as not right?” Nick asked, mostly to vent his own frustration at having to keep so much from his partner that could help them.

            Hank bit his bottom lip and shook his head. “I don't know. Hey, let’s stop and get some food before we head back to the precinct. I can already tell this is going to be a long night.”

            They stopped in at a Chinese place on the way back to the station, but they hardly got to touch their food before Nick's phone rang.

            “Burkhardt.”

            “There's been another killing, same MO as your vic this morning. Get over to Laurelhurst Park,” Wu said shortly and hung up.

            Nick raised a hand. “Can we get boxes and the check please?” The server waved acknowledgment and Nick turned back to Hank. “Another murder, same MO. We need to get Laurelhurst Park.”

            Hank made a frustrated gesture. “That's on the _other_ other side of the city, man.”

            Nick shrugged. He left Hank to box up their food and followed the server over to the register to clear up the bill.

 

~*~

 

            It was past midnight by the time Nick made it home. He was surprised to see Monroe waiting up for him with a book and a beer.

            “Hey,” Monroe greeted, slipping his finger into the book to mark his space, “You hungry?”

            “Uh, no, I'm good. You really don't need to wait up for me,” Nick answered. “It's not like we're married.”

            “No, I know. Rosalee would probably be pretty unhappy about that if we were!”

            Intrigued despite his exhaustion, Nick came into the living room and dropped into the chair across for Monroe.

            “Rosalee Calvert?” he prompted.

            “Yeah. Well... as you know, I've been helping out at the shop ever since, well... you know.” Monroe’s shoulders lifted in the most perfect _aw, shucks_ , shrug Nick had ever seen and it made him smile.

            He stifled the grin to something more sedate and answered, “Yes.”

            “And, we've kinda gone on a few dates, and since I sort of told Juliette that Rosalee was my girlfriend, I felt like I should probably tell _Rosalee_ that I told Juliette that, and turns out she's really okay with being my girlfriend!”

            Nick smiled with genuine pleasure. “Good for you, Monroe. She's quite a catch.”

            “I know! So how about your day?”

            Making his lips buzz with a sharp exhale, Nick said, “Not as good as your day, apparently.”

            Monroe frowned. He set his book aside. “What happened?”

            “We found a young mauzerhertz strung up in a tree with her eyes cut out, her mouth sewn shut, both arms missing, and her ribs pulled out through her back.”

            Monroe jerked in surprise and whistled. “A hanging eagle? Are you kidding?”

            Nick looked up sharply. “What?”

            “Yeah, the Vikings used to do this thing called a blood eagle, where they would cut the ribs away from the spine and then pull them out into wings. They'd then pull the lungs out through the back and drape them over the shoulders. Vicious. But, you know, a hexenbiest can out vicious a Viking any day of the week and three times on a full moon.” He picked up his beer by the neck and took a health sip, shaking his head.

            “A hexenbiest?” Nick was starting to get a really nasty feeling in the pit of his stomach.

            “Yeah. They call it a hanging eagle. They cut out the eyes and then sew the mouth shut while the victim is still alive, and then cut off their arms, pull their ribs out through their back, and take out the heart. From the way I understand it, they put a spell on the victim to keep them alive and conscious all the way until the heart is out. They then hang the victim upside down in a tree or off a building. Nasty, nasty work.” He shuddered.

            Nick considered this for a second and then quickly pulled out his phone. He clicked over to the picture of Anna Romero. “This is the first victim-” he moved to click over to the next victim, a young man, but Monroe grabbed the phone and squinted at it.

            “I know this girl, I think...” he mused, staring at her face.

            “She was a mauzerhertz.”

            Monroe snapped his fingers. “She brought me a 1906 Doxa anti-magnetique pocket watch. Stainless steel, mechanical movement, in great condition. It was an anniversary present for her grandfather, or...”

            “Godfather?” Nick provided unhappily.

            “Yes! Beautiful piece, just needed it cleaned a bit. That was about... just before you moved in.”

            Feeling another spike of that nasty feeling, Nick took the phone back. He scrolled it over to the next picture. Monroe frowned and gave Nick a concerned look. His voice was slow as he answered, “And this guy brought me his mother's 1920's Cambridge Chimes grandmother clock for repair just last week... Nick, what's going on?”      

            “Nothing good,” Nick affirmed with that nasty feeling blooming into full blown nausea. “Was he wesen?”

            “Yeah, a drang-zorn... a badger,” he added when Nick didn't recognize the name. “Nice kid.”

            “Okay, don't panic yet,” Nick ordered, seeing Monroe's eyes go wide.

            “Someone is going to think I did this! They're going to come to me because they both brought me time pieces! I'm going to end up in jail, and man, blutbads do _not_ do well in jail, and there's no way they're going to let me stay on a vegetarian diet, and I get really _really_ not a fun person to be around when I'm eating meat, and some big convict who's killed half a dozen people for real is going to try and rough me up, and I'll get mad and _eat_ him, and then I'll really be there for the rest of my life if some Grimm doesn’t sneak in and just -”             “ _Monroe!_ ”

            Monroe snapped his mouth shut and swallowed hard.

            “Don't panic. First of all, it will take, hopefully, a long time before someone makes that connection. And two people coming to you to get their clocks fixed is not damning in and of itself. It's a pretty tenuous connection. The police might come and question you, but just don't freak out and they won't have any reason to keep you on the suspect list. On top of that, you have an alibi for last night.”

            “I do?”

            “ _Yes_ ,” Nick said patiently. “You were with me. We were eating dinner at six pm. She was taken from a parking lot thirty miles away just after 5, and I can account for your whereabouts all night. What were you doing today?”

            “I was just... here. Home. Um, no - I went to the grocery store at about three because we were out of milk, but otherwise, I was just-”

            “Did anyone see you all day? Any clients? Neighbors?”

            “Umm... Mrs. Wilverly came to pick up her husband's watch around ten am, and... no, that's it. Other than the grocery store. And, you know, Rosalee of course. That was lunch at about noon.”

            “Okay, that's not as strong, but you've got a strong alibi for the night of the first murder. The second murder was probably around four-thirty. There's nothing you can think of that you were doing at that time that we can verify?”

            “Just cooking. And I was watching TV, that werewolf show.”

            “Okay, just play it cool. Hopefully if anything comes down about there being a connection to you, it will come through me first. If that happens though, I won't be the one questioning you. It will probably be Hank or one of the other officers.”       

            “Oh, please tell me you're not going to let me go to prison for this, because, seriously Nick, I will eat that guy!”

            “Monroe, you didn't do anything. But we do need to track down this hexenbiest. Have you ever heard the name Frau Peche?”

            Monroe's expression dropped into the realm of horrified. “Man! How come every time you've ever asked me if I've heard of someone they are always _bad bad news?”_ Monroe threw himself back to the couch, sitting on his abandoned book. He shot back up for a moment to move it and then perched on the edge. “You remember those crazy murders about...oh, 8 years ago, where all those young college guys were going missing and then they'd be found a couple days later skinned?”

            Nick's brows shot up. “That was this Frau Peche? The killer was never caught!”

            “Oh, yes she was. Just not by the police. The prince and his people caught her, but before they could mete out justice, something happened somewhere – probably his dad called or something – and they had to banish her instead. The prince was sending out shotgun blasts of angry aura for a week straight. Then the word came out that she had been sent back to Europe, but that she had a price on her head if she ever stepped foot in the United States again. Not even just Portland, but the whole country.”

            “So it's safe to assume that this Frau Peche is the one committing these murders?”

            “Uh, if she’s in town, then yeah – I'd say that's a _very_ safe assumption.” Monroe drummed his fingers nervously on his knees, but before he could say anything more, the doorbell rang. Monroe went still and looked at Nick in horror. “That's them, that's them, they're here!” he hissed. “The police!”

            “Hold on! How can you tell it's the police?”

            “Who else would be here at... Eleven fifty-three at night?!”

            “Just calm down, I'm going to go answer the door and you are not going to freak out,” Nick said firmly. The doorbell rang once more before Nick made it to the door. He _was_ actually expecting to see a pair of uniformed officers, but was surprised to see that it was Bud, twisting a hat between his blunt fingers.

            “Bud?”

            “Bud!” Monroe shouted from the living room. A second later he appeared behind Nick. “What are you doing here? It's almost midnight!”

            “I'm so sorry,” Bud said immediately. “I know it's late, but I had to talk to you right away.” He came in as soon as Nick moved out of the way and stood nervously in the hallway, eyeing all the clocks. “This is nice, you have a nice place, Monroe. I like all the clocks and the wood, very homey.”

            “Bud...” Monroe growled warningly. “This is not a good time.”

            “Yeah, I know, I'm sorry. I came over here to talk you about Nick – er, Mr. Burkhardt, that is, Detective Burkhardt-”

            “Nick is fine,” Nick interrupted before Bud twisted himself in knots trying to figure out what to call him. The eisbiber smiled brightly and stood a little taller.

            “Nick. And here you are!” He leaned over to whisper to Monroe, “I didn't know you two were... you know. Not that I mind! I think it's great. Juliette was great, really, but Monroe is great too-”

            “We're _not_ a couple,” Monroe said tightly.

            Bud nodded agreeably. “Sure. Right.”

            “Bud? What did you come here to talk about?” Nick prompted when the eisbiber ran out of stalling phrases.

            “Oh, yeah, right. See, it's come to my attention that there's a hexenbiest in town, and she is gunning for you, Nick. Hard.”

            “Frau Peche?” Nick guessed.

            “Yeah! Hey, how did you know?”

            “A mauzerhertz warned me today. We were just talking about her actually. Do you know where she might be?”

            Bud looked frankly terrified at the prospect. “Me? No, no! That's not the kind of thing that someone like me would know. I heard that she was trying to recruit though, looking for any wesen that might be happy to see a Grimm out of the way, if you know what I mean.”

            Nick tilted his head back with a frustrated groan and pinched the bridge of his nose. “And that is probably a long list.”

            “Not as long as you'd think,” Bud interjected.

            “Yeah, no way,” Monroe agreed.

            Nick opened his hands in a gesture of confusion. “Why no way?”

            “Because you're not like other Grimms. Because you've helped a lot of us, and we're grateful. Having a Grimm on our side?” Bud laughed, the sound half way between excited and nervous. “It's like suddenly having Vader swinging a light saber for your team!”

            “I thought that same analogy,” Monroe added, momentarily forgetting his fright over the case.

            “It works, doesn't it?” Bud agreed in excitement.

            “ _What_ are you two talking about?”

            “Well, if the enemy that scared the pants off of you for your entire life is suddenly on your side and scaring the pants off of your other enemies? Pretty good feeling. And we like you, Nick. You're a good guy.”

            Nick took the announcement in with no small amount of bemusement. Even George Nickles, who said that he'd heard Nick was one of the good guys, jumped back from him like he expected Nick to take out a battle axe at any moment.

            “Not everyone feels that way,” he pointed out.

            “Well, no,” Bud agreed with a shrug. “But that's only because they don't know you yet. And even most of them wouldn't join a posse to kill you anyway, because the prince has made it pretty darn clear that you're off limits.”

            Nick's eyes widened and he didn't miss Monroe making a cutting gesture to stop Bud from speaking further. Nick held up a hand to Monroe to get him to cut it out and fixed his attention on Bud.

            “Have you ever met this prince?” He'd been meaning to get in touch with Farley Colt (if the man was even still in the city three weeks later), but he'd been getting bogged down with one case after another, and most of them involving wesen. Monroe also hadn’t gotten far with tracking down the prince, though Nick didn’t think he was trying too hard.

            Bud laughed in equal parts shock and disbelief. “No way! No one I know even knows someone who _knows_ someone who's met the prince. It's not really done – the meeting thing, I mean. He's just there. And trust me, you don't want to meet him. The only time anyone ever meets him is when they've done something wrong. And they don't live to talk about the meeting.”

            Nick wanted to point out exactly everything that was wrong with that narrative, but he let it go with a little wave. “Alright, what about this Frau Peche then, is there anything at all you can tell me about where to find her?”

            Bud shook his head, his shoulders falling. “Sorry, Nick.”

            “It's okay,” Nick said quickly, realizing that the eisbiber somehow felt that he'd let Nick down. “Thank you for coming to warn us. Please stay safe, and get the word out to your community that I am looking for this hexenbiest, and if anyone sees her, I need to know about immediately. But _don’t_ approach her – just call me right away. The two young people who were murdered today were both wesen, so try to stay in groups.”

            Bud blanched and gulped, momentarily going through a woge.

            “Do you want Monroe and me to drive you home?” Nick offered. He was tired and desperately needed some sleep, but he couldn't tell Bud to stay in a group and then send him out alone, especially not since this hexenbiest might be hunting wesen who were connected to Monroe.

            “Oh, no, that's okay. My friend Andy is in the car. We'll stay together and we'll get the message out. Anything we can do to help, you just call me!” He held out a piece of paper that had been neatly trimmed to the size of a business card with Bud's name and phone number written in a flowing feminine hand. “Oh! And I almost forgot!” Bud darted back out the door and grabbed a basket that he'd apparently set down on the porch when he rang the doorbell. “This is for you!” He thrust the basket at Nick. “It's a pie. My wife made it – apple. And some fresh fruit. The towel on the top was embroidered by my daughter, and my sons made the basket.”

            Nick blinked down at it. He could smell the rich apple and cinnamon even through the flower-embroidered towel on the top, and the basket was made of thick rushes with a chevron pattern woven in and a sturdy wooden handle. He felt a pang when it occurred to him that Juliette would have loved it.

            “You didn't have to do this,” Nick started, but Bud waved him off, already backing out the door.

            “We wanted to. We felt bad about the whole... stalking thing. I meant to give it to Monroe to give to you, but hey, you're here so – I hope you like it. My wife Phoebe makes the best pies.” He patted his stomach, still backing down the stairs.

            “Be careful!” Nick called out when Bud made it the walk and hurried to the work van idling in front of the house.

            Nick kept the door open until the van pulled out of sight and then looked up at Monroe. The blutbad shrugged and lifted the cloth to look at the pie nestled in among an array of fresh apples and pears.

            “It does look good,” he said finally.

            Nick handed it off to him and stretched. “I need to get some sleep. So do you.” He clapped his friend on the upper arm in encouragement and turned for the stairs. He was asleep almost before he hit the pillow ten minutes later.

           

            But not, as it turned out, for long. The clock beside the bed read 5:37 when his cell phone woke him out of a solid slumber. He moaned and wished he had one of those jobs where he could turn his phone off at night and not be expected to talk about work until morning, but answered it on the third ring.

            “Sorry to wake you up,” Sergeant Ianson said gruffly. “But we've got another of the Hanging Murders.”

            Nick was dismayed to hear that the murders had already been given a collective name. It was bad news all around, and they were bizarre enough that they'd already made the press. A third murder in the string would drive the media into a frenzy and probably go national. Just the kind of pressure and attention they didn't need.

            “Where?”

            “Forest Park.”

            “Christ,” Nick cussed. He swung his legs out of bed and stretched with the phone pressed to his face. “What do we know?”

            “Well, the killer is getting cocky. This time they stapled the victim's driver's license to a noose and hung it around his neck.”

            Nick scrubbed one hand over his face and grimaced. “Fantastic.”

            “I'll text you a picture of the license.”

            “Thanks. Is Hank already on his way?”

            “I had Officer Collins give him a call.”

            Nick yawned through a farewell and hung up the phone. The text came through just as he was struggling into his pants. He was pretty sure they were the same pants that he wore the day before, but he wasn't awake enough to do a sniff test on them. The belt was still attached, so it was good enough for him. He glanced at the picture of the driver's license, and then at the next picture showing the license stapled to a length of silk cord tied in a noose. Part of the victim's chest and chin were visible in the picture and Nick shuddered.

            Monroe was laid out on the floor with his ass in the air and both shoulders on a yoga mat, one arm stretched though the other so his nose was in his armpit. “Sorry, man, did I wake you?” the blutbad asked as he unwound himself. “I couldn't sleep, so I just got up to do some yoga. Want to join me?”

            Ever since the Grimm-ness conversation, Monroe had been offering to help Nick with yoga and pilates, but they'd only had time for a couple attempts so far. “No,” Nick said, though he felt sure the stretching would do him some good. “There's been another murder.”

            Monroe stiffened and dropped down so his ass was between his ankles. “Oh, god,” he moaned. “Is it someone I know? It's not Bud is it?”  

            The thought made Nick feel sick. “No, it’s not Bud.” He pulled out his phone and brought up the close-up of the driver's license. “Know him?”

            Monroe made a horrible animal noise. “That's James Cameron. He's a fuchsbau. And he's supposed to be bringing me a watch to repair today. I've fixed it for him before.”

            Nick clenched his teeth to avoid screaming. “The situation has changed then. You're going to need to come forward.”

            “What?!” Monroe shot to his feet and started pacing instantly.

            “Monroe, you have to. Two is a coincidence, and you'd probably be way down the least of possible leads if someone even found the connection at all. But three is a pattern, and if they found a connection now? You might be dealing with worse than just a couple questions in the comfort of your own home.”

            “Nick, I can't-”

            “You have to. If you come forward with information and volunteer your alibis, it will be a lot less suspicious. I have to go to this crime scene, but I'll call you when I'm on my way to the precinct. You meet me there and I'll try to get Hank in the room with you. At least if he has any suspicions, he'll come to me first.”

            “But I'm supposed to meet Rosalee for brunch,” Monroe protested pitifully.

            “I think Rosalee will understand you canceling. Just do some more yoga, try to calm yourself down so you're not acting more suspicious than necessary.” He tried to hold Monroe's gaze and give him some kind of encouragement or comfort, but the blutbad wouldn't even meet his eyes and he was so agitated that he woged without even seeming to notice. Nick patted him helplessly on the shoulder and made a run for his car.

 

~*~

 

            “Who found the victim?” Hank asked a uniformed cop as Nick made it to the scene. Half of the force seemed to be out in the early morning light. A crowd of reporters had gathered at the crime scene tape closest to the body with a milling group of passerby craning to see over the officers standing at the perimeter. Even Renard was there, still looking pale and not fully recovered from his gunshot wound.

            “A jogger who stopped to tie his shoe. David Wilherst. He put his foot up on that tree-” Officer Lenard pointed to a tree adjacent to the tree with its grizzly ornament. “Saw some movement, looked over, and...” The officer trailed off with a shrug of 'you can guess what came next.' Hank nodded and then gestured Nick to the ambulance. This was third such scene they'd come upon. The second victim, Rodriguez Estrella, was discovered by a woman taking a short cut through Laurlhurst on her way home. They found her huddled in an ambulance with a shock blanket wrapped around her shoulders.

            “I am not liking the way we are finding these witnesses,” Hank muttered as they approached the ambulance, as if he had read the thoughts right out of Nick's head.

            “Agreed,” Nick said, because there was no way he could pass this off as not strange.

            “Your turn,” Hank muttered as they drew closer. The man was dressed in a pair of red running shorts and a long-sleeved black athletic shirt that clung to his body, visible even beneath the scratchy industrial blanket that some well-meaning EMT had draped around his shoulders. Just like the previous two witnesses, he was staring off into space, his face completely slack with shock.

            “Mr. Wilherst?” Nick greeted. He crouched down right away and waved to get the man's attention. He really was a beautiful man and would have been just Nick's type if they had met at a bar and not on a crime scene. “Mr. Wilherst, my name is Detective Burkhardt. Can you tell me what time you were jogging this morning?”

            Wilherst answered like he was in a dream and they went through all the standard questions. Yes, he jogged in the park frequently, no he didn't see anyone else in particular, though there were always a lot of joggers on the track by the river. He didn't know the victim.

            Nick almost didn't ask the last standard question, but he had to or it would be noticed. He winced as he quietly asked, “Was there anything else you saw or heard that might help us?”

            “I... I saw...” His eyes widened and filled with tears. “I saw... his eyes. He didn't have any eyes. He was looking... _into_ me...” The tears overflowed and just like with the previous two witnesses, he started to hyperventilate. Unlike the previous two ladies, he toppled out of the ambulance right into Nick's arms, and started to convulse. Nick didn't even have time to draw breath to call for a medic before the EMT was at his side, pulling the seizing man out of his arms and turning him onto his side. Nick scrambled around to Wilherst's head and tried to keep him from hurting himself while the two EMTs worked.

            They injected Wilherst with a dose of Ativan, and the man fell still after a few more violent jerks. Color flushed into his face and the harried paramedic rolled him onto the stretcher. “We need to get him to the hospital,” he said to get Nick to back off and together the two paramedics lifted Wilherst onto a stretcher and loaded him into the ambulance.

            “Did you learn anything?”

            Nick jumped, startled by Renard's voice when he didn't even realize that the police captain was standing over him. He looked up and finally noticed that wall of blue uniforms were providing cover from the craze of reporters trying to see around them to the action.

            “No, sir,” Nick answered finally. Renard held a hand out to him and Nick hesitated only a moment before he took it. The captain winced, but his grip was firm as he gave Nick a tug to get back to his feet. Nick let go of his hand quickly, his face flushing a little as he suddenly recalled the brush of Renard's lips on his neck. “Pretty much the same story as the other two. Stopped for something unrelated, noticed something strange, there was the body. There are probably at least a hundred joggers out here every morning, but he didn't notice anyone acting strange, and no woman in a black jacket. Just like the other two, he went into some kind of psychological breakdown when he recalled seeing the victim.”

            Renard frowned and nodded. “Go ahead back to the station. We're going to need to bring in some extra hands on this one. These murders are sensational and the press is latching onto them like bloodhounds. Three ritualistic murders in two days? It's a nightmare.” He gave them both a nod to dismiss them and turned to try and handle the press pushing at the line of uniforms holding them back.

 

~*~

 

            “Hey, Hank? Can you do an interview for me?” Nick asked when they got back to the station. Monroe texted him that he'd been put into an interview room just as they were pulling into the garage.

            “Yeah, sure,” Hank said, but he frowned in confusion. “Why don't you want to do it?”

            “It's Monroe.” Nick made himself sound casual and unconcerned.

            Hank's left eyebrow rose. “The friend you're living with Monroe?”

            “Yeah. Turns out he knows our victims.” Nick shrugged one shoulder and adjusted his jacket.

            And now the other eyebrow joined the first half way to Hank's hairline. “All of them?”

            “All of them. He's done watch or clock repairs for all the three of them in the last two months or so.”

            “How does he know about the third victim?” Hank asked with only the usual latent detective curiosity.

            “He saw the picture of the first victim last night. When it turned out that he recognized her, I showed him the second victim. When it turned out he recognized them both, I suggested that he come down today to give a statement. I showed him the picture of our third victim on the way out the door and he said that James Cameron was supposed to be bringing him a watch today.”

            “That does sound a little suspicious,” Hank suggested.

            “Well, I was with him during 2 of the 3 murders, so I'm reasonably sure he doesn't have anything to do with it, but still-”

            “Is that a witness for the Hanging Murders in interview 3?”

            Nick jumped, startled by Renard twice in one morning. He turned around to see the captain standing once more above him, face pulled into his usual 'I'm working' frown, though looking even more pale and drawn than he had at the scene earlier. Nick suppressed a surge of concern – the captain could take care of himself and didn’t need one of his detectives momma-henning him at work.

            “Uh, no, not really. Someone who knew all three of the victims, coming forward in case he has anything useful for us.”

            “All three?” Renard's frown deepened. “Why aren't you in there interviewing him?”

            Nick worried at his bottom lip for a second and shrugged. “Because he's my roommate. Hank was just getting ready to go in.”

            “I thought I would ask Wu to sit in with me,” Hank piped up. They were careful to avoid anything that had even the most remote possibility of being pulled up as police favoritism later. If someone close to a cop ever came in for an interview, they tried to make sure they had as many witnesses as possible during the interview to eliminate being called on it later.

            “Wu was just called out for a B&E on his way in.” Renard glanced over at the interview room, though the blinds were pulled. “I'll do it.”

            “Sir?” Hank and Nick asked almost simultaneously, both showing their shock.

            “I'm standing right here, and I want to get the interview over with so we can call a briefing. It will be faster if you don't have to fill me in on it later.”

            Nick felt a little cold at the suggestion that the captain would be taking an active role in the case. He always had a hand in every open case at the department, and the detectives of course kept him updated throughout the investigation, but he rarely got his hands dirty unless it was high profile or the detectives in charged had messed something up. Or both. Nick just hoped it was only because this case was getting media attention and not that Renard felt he needed to keep a closer eye on them.

            Renard started walking away, but stopped after a few paces and looked back. “Are you coming, detective Griffin?”

            Hank scrambled out of the chair, leaving Nick to worry at Monroe being stuck in a room alone with both Hank and Renard – especially Renard. Even when the man wasn't trying to be intimidating, he was a little intense. He just hoped that Monroe could keep his head on straight.

 

~*~

 

            Sean had to fight to keep himself looking alert and not too concerned. The lingering effects of the curse on the coins had slowed his natural healing substantially and the bullet wound was painful and draining. He also knew that Hank and Nick had to be worried about him stepping into their case, but there was no help for that. The chief of police himself had roused Sean out of a restless sleep when the third victim was called in, tersely suggesting that he be recovered enough to take the investigation in hand before they had a national crisis sitting in their laps. He'd hung up on Sean without even making sure Sean heard him.

            Sean was planning on coming in anyway when he got an update from Wu on what the media was already calling the Hanging Murders. He recognized the hexenbiest hanging eagle right away and it was all Garza could do to keep him from storming into the police station at midnight, or going after Frau Peche with his own hands.

            “Hello,” Sean greeted, not looking directly at the blutbad as he opened the door. Hank came in fast on his heels and he offered a hand to Monroe. Sean recognized the man immediately, but a lifetime of keeping his expression neutral meant none of that showed. “I am Captain Sean Renard, this is Detective Griffin.” Sean gestured briefly to Hank and sat down. “I understand that you have some information on the recent murders to share?”

            Monroe looked pale and terrified. “I... yes. That is, not on the murders!” he hurried to clarify. “Just on the people. They were clients of mine.”

            “And what is it that you do, Mr. Monroe?”

            “Watches, clocks. Repairs, mostly, some restoration. Occasionally I appraise pieces or help connect buyers and sellers. That kind of thing.” Sean was pleased that though the man was obviously worried out of his mind, he was managing to keep his aura under wraps and his body language wasn't betraying any kind of guilt or abnormal tension. Anyone forced to come into the police station to admit to knowing three out of three murder victims would be tense.

            “Can you tell me about these three people?” He laid out all three photographs.

            Monroe leaned over them. “Anna I just met maybe two months ago. She brought in a pocketwatch that was going to be a gift for her godfather. Rodriguez brought in his mother's grandmother clock to be repaired a few weeks ago, and James was supposed to bring me a watch to repair today. I've fixed it for him before, but he keeps getting it wet.... I guess,” Monroe swallowed hard and looked stricken, “I guess not anymore,” he finished quietly.

            “Have you seen any of these three people in the last week?”

            Monroe shook his head. “No.”

            “And how did you come to know the identity of these victims?”

            “Um... well, Detective Nick Burkhardt is a friend of mine. And I saw the first picture-” he pointed to Anna, “And I remembered her bringing in the pocketwatch. So Nick showed me Rodriguez, and then James this morning.”

            “Detective Burkhardt is your roommate?”

            If possible, the blutbad blanched even further. “Yes. Just roommates.” Sean couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at that. He also couldn't help a sudden hot surge of jealousy and had to remind himself that Nick didn't belong to him, and besides, there was no indication that these two were anything more than friends.

            Still, his voice might have been a little cold when he asked, “How long have you been roommates?”

            “About two months,” he answered in a rush, squirming in his seat.

            “And where were you the night before last?”

            The question made Monroe relax. “With Nick. He got home a little early, we made dinner around six, watched some tv until maybe ten, and went to bed. Separately,” he added. “I mean... in our own beds. That is, of course, that we always sleep in our own beds, because we're just roommates. I have a lovely girlfriend.”

            “Detective Griffin? I think Mr. Monroe could use some water.” Sean glanced over to see a dubious look on Hank's face that slid more towards suspicion at every one of Monroe's unnecessary declarations.

            “Yeah. I'll be right back,” Hank agreed, standing.

            Sean waited until the door was closed and turned his full attention on Monroe. “You know all three of these victims were wesen?”

            Monroe reared back, surprise sending him into a partial woge. “What are you talking about, man?” he asked nervously.

            “Cut the crap. We have less than two minutes before Griffin gets back and I don't feel like answering you with a woge.” Monroe shook his head to reassert his human features and nodded. “I know the girl was a mauzerhertz, and Cameron a fuchsbau. What about Estrella?”

            “Drang-zorn.”

            Sean nodded. “Thank you. Nick doesn't know about me – please keep it that way. Now stop babbling that you and Nick are only roommates. And keep a closer eye on him. There's a hexenbiest in town-”

            “Frau Peche, we know.”

            Sean’s gaze sharpened on Monroe’s face. “Do you know where she is?”

            “Pretty sure Nick would be doing the beheading routine right now if we did,” Monroe hissed quietly. “What are you?”

            Sean wouldn't have answered him anyway, but Griffin's silhouette appeared on the window and the door opened before Sean could dodge the question. Monroe sat back in his chair and accepted the glass of water. He swallowed half of it before setting it down.

            “Thank you, detective. Mr. Monroe, where were you yesterday afternoon about four-thirty?”

            “Probably I would have just been getting from the store. I think I left at about three, so... getting home at four-thirty sounds about right.”

            “Can anyone verify your whereabouts?”

            “Michael Brangs definitely saw me at the store – it’s a little corner grocery where they sell some great vegetables, delivered fresh every day. Brang's Pantry.”

Sean wrote it down. “And last night?”

            “With Nick, again.” He made a visible effort to stop himself from blurting out one more time that they were just roommates and Sean gave him a withering look.

            “Detective Griffin, do you have anything to add?” Sean made a gesture at the blutbad to give Hank the floor.

            Hank frowned suspiciously between the pair of them. “Do you know if these three people knew each other?”

            Monroe shrugged. “I have no idea. I never saw any of them together, they all brought in their pieces at separate times, and they were just clients. I'm not really in a tell-me-your-whole-life-story type of business. People bring me their clocks, I fix them and give them back. Not a whole lot more personal than a dry cleaner, mostly.”

            Sean guessed that wasn't strictly true. When dealing with antiques, people liked to regale anyone who would listen on the story of how the item ended up in their family and everything else that surrounded the item. If the situation were different and this was just any interview, Sean would have pointed that out. Since he didn't want the department's attention on Monroe any more than Nick did, he let it slide.

            “Is there anything else you can tell us about them? Did they have the same watch or something?” Hank asked, obviously grasping for any connection.

            “No, Anna brought in an antique 1906 pocketwatch, Rodriguez came in with a 1920's grandmother clock, and James was supposed to be bringing me his Rolex. Different pieces, different manufactures, different time periods... honestly you probably couldn't put together a list of any three less similar items if you tried. The only thing they had in common is that they all tell time. Sorry I can't be more help. Nick just thought it would be a good idea for me to come in since I knew all three of them.”

            “And he thought right.” Sean reached into his jacket and pulled out a business card. “Call if there's anything else you can think of that might be useful.” He gave Griffin another moment and then stood when the detective didn't come up with any other questions. He offered Monroe his hand again and made eye contact while they shook briefly. Monroe slipped out of the room quickly enough after a perfunctory shake with Griffin.

            “Strange guy,” Hank commented.

            “Seems harmless enough though. He's got a pretty solid alibi for two out of the three murders -” He glanced at Hank. “Unless you think Nick had something to do with this?”

            Hank snorted in disbelief at the absurdity of the suggestion and Sean nodded.

            “I didn't think so. Keep him in mind, but unless something else comes up, put your attention to finding a more likely suspect.”

            He just hoped that the likely suspect they found was not Frau Peche. She had escaped his judgment once and wouldn't do so again.

 

~*~

 

            “Nick, can I talk to you for a minute?” Hank asked that night as they trudged out of the precinct. Renard put together a task force and started a briefing, but it was interrupted by a fourth kill. A pattern had formed with kills approximately twelve hours apart, and the bodies were left across town from where they were picked up, always in a park, and so far in four different parks. The fourth was called in by a young mother taking her infant for a walk. All four witness were in trauma-induced comas.

            “Nick?”

            Nick shook his head to dispel the cloud of exhausting hanging around his ears. He took in a breath and let it out as a yawn. “Sorry, Hank. Drifted off there. It's been a long day.”

            “You're telling me.”

            They fell into silence as they walked to the parking garage. “You wanted to talk?” Nick asked almost reluctantly as they came even with his truck.

            “Yeah. I know I should probably wait until after this case is over, but I really need an ear, and I might go crazy in the next forty-eight hours if I don't tell someone.” Hank looked at him apologetically, but he didn't hesitate when Nick gestured to the passenger door.

            “Coffee?”

            “Why don't we just go to my place? I don't think either of us needs anymore coffee right now. You can crash there if you want, get the most sleep possible?”

            Nick had the feeling that Hank was just trying to keep him from escaping, or his partner would have taken his own vehicle. He nodded though, not willing to argue with the _most sleep possible_ plan. Hank settled into the comfortable seat and Nick called Monroe to warn him that he probably wouldn't be home. Monroe was in a knot of nerves and protested strenuously to not having an alibi for the night.

            “Call Rosalee and ask her to stay with you,” Nick suggested, pinching the bridge of his nose.

            “She's already been here all evening. I can't ask her to the stay night!”

            “Why not? You stayed the night with her when she needed you to,” Nick pointed out.

            “Yeah, on the _couch_. I'm not going to ask her to sleep on the couch!”

            Nick gritted his teeth. “Well, I am not going to be home tonight, so she can have my bed.” _Or share yours,_ he wanted to add, but didn't.

            By the time Monroe got that all settled with Rosalee, they were pulling up in front of Hank's small, comfortable home.

            “Alright, I don't want to rush you,” Nick said before they even got into the house. “But I'm really tired. What did you want to talk about?”

            Hank took him by both shoulders and moved him to the couch. He positioned Nick with undue care right in the middle of the three-cushion sofa and pushed until he sat down. Once Nick was installed on the not quite comfortable sofa, Hank backed up and started pacing, one hand periodically wiping across his lips or touching his chin.

            “This is going to sound crazy,” Hank said just when Nick was getting to the boiling point. “But just promise me you'll hear me out, right?”

            “Right,” Nick promised with somewhat exaggerated care. He struggled to keep his eyes open and his arms felt like they weighed a hundred pounds each.

            “Okay. So... you know all the strange shit we've been dealing with lately? That weird case with all those damn bees, the human organ supplement ring, the crazy mom making her son hunt down people in the woods?”

            Nick nodded, very much not liking the way the conversation was headed.

            “And let's not forget those coins? I think... now, just hear me out. I think something really freaky is going on in this town. Right about... what, five months ago? Six... when you and your auntie Marie were attacked with _scythe_? That seemed to be about the beginning of it, and then things have just been getting worse and weirder. The cabin way out in the middle of the fucking woods with grandpa cannibal tearing up young girls? That gladiatorial arena?”

            “I admit, things have been a little... strange. But when it rains, it pours, right?”

            “Not right. When it used to pour, it poured run of the mill crazies. Drug addicts, gangs, the occasional real whackjob. This is... this has been something else. And I either I'm going insane – like certifiable take me off duty and lock me up for the rest of my life insane- or there's something more to it. And I don't think I'm insane.”

            “So what do you think is going on?” Nick asked patiently. He did his best not to sound like he thought Hank was crazy, but also not to be too encouraging, just on the off chance that Hank was using him as a sounding board to put his theory together.

            “Don't look at me like I'm nuts man, but...” Hank swallowed nervously. His voice lowered to a reedy whisper and he finished, “I have been _seeing_ shit.”

            Nick's heartbeat nearly froze in his chest. “What kind of... shit?”

            “Those guys behind the bee sting kills? I looked at one them while he was writing his confession, and I swear, just for a second, he looked like something else. Like... a giant bug. And when we were in Leo Taymore's office? For a minute he looked like some kind of big cat, like a lion. And sometimes...sometimes I look at you.. and your eyes just go black, and it's like you can see into my soul.”

            Nick didn't know how to respond. Hank had somehow begun to see the wesen world all on his own without being told, and without any mind melting! It was the best solution Nick could think of, and he wanted to howl he was so happy. The rush of endorphins gave him a little boost of energy, and he didn’t feel like his head was going to fall off.

            “See, I knew you would think I was crazy!” Hank said in desperation. “I thought at first that I was going crazy, but I'm not, I swear-”

            “Hank, it's alright.” Nick smiled at him, relief rushing through him. “It's really alright. You're not crazy. That suspect really was a giant bug – they're called mellifers. And Leo Taymore was a löwen. And sometimes when certain people look at me, I _can_ see their souls. Sort of. I am so... _so_ happy that I can finally talk to you about this!”

            Hank stared at him, mouth hanging open. “... So you see all this shit too?”

            “Yes, Hank. They're called wesen. Some of them are good, some of them aren't. I'm a Grimm.”

            Rather than being relieved at confirmation that he wasn't crazy, Hank's expression turned angry. “How long have you been hiding this from me?” he demanded. “First the gay thing, and now this too? What else don't I know?”

            “Hank, calm down-”

            Hank threw his hands in the air. “I'm your _partner,_ man. Why don't you trust me?”

            “ _Hank_. I've only known about all of this for the last six months. Since that week that Aunt Marie died. I started seeing crazy things, and I thought _I_ was going crazy and was just trying to hold it together until it went away. And then my aunt showed up and she tried to explain this to me, but we didn't really have a lot of time. She left me all of her books, and Monroe has been helping me-”

            “Monroe? The Monroe I met today, Monroe? The one you tackled outside his house? Yeah, I remember that.”

            Nick flushed and cleared his throat. “Sorry. Look, I saw him woge – that's when a wesen shows their true form, how you saw the mellifer and Taymore – and I thought he was the killer on the red jacket case. He is a blutbad – that's kind of a wolfman- but he's not like that at all.”

            Hank looked blank, obviously overwhelmed with information. “I don't even know what to do with this. Why didn't you tell me?”

            “What was I supposed to say?”

            “I just told you!” Hank threw his arms out wide in an energetic display of frustration.

            “Monroe warned me that if you try to bring a normal human into the loop, they either don't believe you and think you're crazy, they do believe you and think _they're_ crazy, or their brain just melts. I didn't really like any of those scenarios. But you started seeing them all on your own, so I think you're past the brain melting stage.” Nick had to restrain himself, but he felt like bouncing on the sofa, like a five year old boy told he was going to Disney land for a _whole month_.

            “I feel like my brain _has_ melted,” Hank muttered, falling in his easy chair and leaning his head back against the backrest. “You're going to have to explain all this to me.”

            “I will, I promise. Believe me, there have been so many times that I wanted to, but not right now. We both need some sleep if we're going to catch this-” Nick stopped, his breath robbed from his lungs. His eyes widened and he stared at Hank for several long second. “You said...sometimes when you look at me, it's like I can _see your soul_?”

            Hank gave him a suspicious look. “Yeah. Your eyes go completely black from end to end, like they're...mirrors…” Hank’s voice trailed off and his eyes widened.

            Nick pulled out his cellphone and hit redial on the last number. Monroe picked up after two rings.

            “What is it? Not another murder, is it?” Monroe asked in a high-pitched, panicky voice.

            “No, no,” Nick interrupted before he could get into full meltdown mode, “Monroe, when I pull out my Grimm-ness, what do my eyes look like?”

            Monroe was quiet for a second. “Uh... you're sitting there with Hank, I thought.”

            “I am. He's clued in, but I didn't tell him, he figured it out himself. Just answer the question – what do my eyes look like?”

            Monroe sputtered for a heartbeat, obviously caught off guard. He finally answered, “Well, when I'm woged or you’re all... Grimm-y, your eyes turn completely black and I see myself reflected in them, but not my human form, I see my true form.”

            “Your soul?” Nick prompted.

            “I guess you could put it that way.”

            Growing excited, Nick asked, “Is there any way that a mirror could be made to do that same thing? To act like a Grimm's... Grimm-ness?”

            Monroe floundered on the other end of the line, and finally Rosalee took the phone away from him and asked him to repeat his question.

            “There are stories of mirrors that can do that,” Rosalee confirmed. “Have you ever heard the story of Dorian Gray? He stayed beautiful on the outside, but whenever he looked into this specific painting, he could see his soul and how ugly it grew the more he damaged it – there are older stories where the cursed person sees this in mirrors instead. That's a hexenbiest spell – they have several that can enchant mirrors to do all kinds of things, including looking into someone's true form. Their soul.”

            “Goddamnit!” Nick snarled. “She's not just killing wesen. The witnesses that are finding the victims are actually victims themselves! They look up in the mirrors and then something happens to them.”

            “What happens?” Rosalee asked immediately.

            “They go into a kind of shock, and then when they recall the victim, they just... shut down. All four of them have gone into trauma-induced comas.”

            “That's definitely a hexenbiest curse. Their souls are being captured by the mirrors, I bet. I need to go to the shop to research more, but if that's the case, we've got to find a way to release those souls. And very soon.”

            “Is there a way,” Nick asked, daring to hope, “That we can track the hexenbiest through the mirrors?”

            Rosalee hesitated. “There might be,” she said reluctantly. “I need to research it to learn more, though.”

            “I know it's late, but can you meet Hank and I at the shop? Thank you! Take Monroe with you, do _not_ leave him alone.” Nick hung up. “Hank, I know it's late and we're both tired and you're confused, but-”

            “Sounds like a lead,” Hank interrupted. He grabbed his jacket off the back of the chair and headed straight for the door. He turned to point a finger at Nick. “But as soon as this shit quiets down, you _are_ going to tell me what the hell is going on.”


	8. Nature of the Biests

Chapter Eight:

Nature of the Biests

 

            “I was afraid of this,” Rosalee said in the early hours of the morning. All four of them were wan and lined with exhaustion. Hank barely kept his eyes open as he leaned over a book, and Monroe finally crashed twenty minutes before. Nick let him sleep, remembering that Monroe had gotten even less sleep than he did the night before.

            “What is it?” Nick asked, rubbing sleep out of his eyes.

            “The mirrors _do_ create a direct link between someone who stares directly into them and the hexenbiest. She feeds off of it and uses the energy for major spellwork. The initial death fuels the mirrors, and that corpse acts as a conduit directly to the hexenbiest.”

            “Then why haven't the medical examiner and the CSI techs fallen into these comas?” Nick asked, revving his brain back into functionality.

            “People would naturally avoid looking directly into the mirrors when they know they're there. You would have to stare into the mirror, unblinking, for several seconds. Someone who’s not expecting it, looking up and catching their reflection in such a horrible place? They would probably stare, like watching a train wreck and not being able to look away. After that, it would take some time for the mirrors to drain enough of that person's energy to put them in the coma. And then,” she shrugged. “I don't know – maybe it takes them a while to recharge, and by the time they are working again, they're already shut up in a body bag? I'm not really an expert on hexenbiest curses,” Rosalee said apologetically.

            “But theoretically, if I were to look into one of these mirrors, I could get a directly line on the hexenbiest?” Nick clarified.

            “Nick you can't!” Rosalee snapped, waking up both Hank and Monroe. “You would be trapped just like the others, and then knowing where she is wouldn't do anyone any good.”

            “How do we bring people out of the coma?”

            “The mirror has to be shattered with a special ceremonial dagger dipped in hexenbiest blood.” Rosalee said, and then pursed her lips and crossed her arms in triumph. She turned the book so that Nick could see the dagger.

            “Any hexenbiest's blood?”

            “Yes, any, but Nick, where would you even get a hexenbiest's silver ceremonial dagger?”

            Nick looked over at Monroe and Monroe gave him a look of sleepy shock that made him seem a bit deranged when combined with the one half-closed eye and dark circles. “Seriously? She actually had one of those?”

            “Three of them,” Nick confirmed. Monroe whistled in something like awe. 

            Rosalee was beyond exasperated. “Okay, fine. So you have the dagger. How do you mean to get the blood?”

            “Oh, I have an idea of where I might find a hexenbiest who owes me a favor.”

            “Must be some gigantic favor if you think she would give up her blood. That is _not_ something that a hexenbiest gives up willingly.”

            “Then I might just have to take it unwillingly. Thanks, Rosalee, you've been a lot of help.” Nick reached across the table and squeezed her hand, and then motioned for Hank to follow him. Monroe started to get up, but Nick waved him back down. “You're exhausted. Get a little sleep and I'll call you as soon as I've got it all set up.”

            It was a testament to how tired the blutbad was that he didn't even argue.

 

~*~

 

            “So, you're telling me Adalind Schade is a... what?” Hank asked, brow furrowed in disbelief.

            “Hexenbiest.”

            “A hexenbiest. And the one who is committing all these murders is another hexenbiest. So we're going to take this crazy looking silver knife-”

            “Dagger.”

            “-Dagger, that you got out of your aunt Marie's psychopath's wet dream trailer, get Adalind's blood on it, and then you are going to go stare into a corpse's mirror eyes until you fall into a coma, so you can find out where the other hexenbiest is hiding... and then I'll break the mirror, and you'll wake up?”

            “Pretty much.” Nick threw the truck into park outside Schade's house. It was not quite seven in the morning, and it appeared that they were in luck and the lawyer hadn't left for the office. They had maybe another hour before the next murder would pop up if the pattern held true.

            “I am I the only one who sees all the flaws in this plan?”

            “Nope.” Nick slammed the truck door and jogged up the path to Schade's front door with Hank on his heels. Nick was running on adrenaline and caffeine and both were nearly at their limits. He raised his hand to knock, but the door moved out from under his fist before he could make contact and nearly landed on Schade's forehead instead. He lamented his fast reflexes that had him jerking the fist back instead of indulging in the perfectly justified excuse to hit the bitch.

            “Detectives Burkhardt and Griffin,” Schade said with a false smile after she recovered from her shock. “What a pleasant surprise at... 6:51 in the morning. Can I help you?”

            Nick didn't even bother with pleasantries, but pushed right into her house. He heard Hank apologizing as his partner followed him and Schade stood at the door for several seconds, looking stunned and irritated before she finally pushed it shut.

            “Not that I don't _love_ very early morning company, but I need to go to work.”

            “I'm only going to say this once,” Nick warned, crowding her back into the door. “So pay attention. There is a hexenbiest in town who is performing hanging eagle rituals on wesen. She is planting soul mirrors in their eyes. I need your blood to get these people out of the comas. You can give it to me willingly, or I can take it. Your choice.”

            “Woah! Okay, back up tiger. You smell like you haven't bathed or brushed your teeth in a few days. First of all: human?” she gestured to Hank, who only smiled. “Fine, whatever. Second of all, I've heard about the hanging eagles and I've been trying to find out where this other hexenbiest is, but she's being annoyingly clever. And lastly, you would need a hexenbiest's silver ceremonial dagger, and I am sure as hell not giving you mine-” Nick held up the dagger he'd retrieved from Marie's trailer. Schade stared at it for a second with her mouth slack. She lifted her eyebrows in a facial shrug and then continued, “And lastly, you would need fresh blood on the dagger. Even if you slit my throat with it and drain me dry, it won't help you one teeny little bit in an hour when you finally get to the mirrors.”

            Nick hesitated. He thought it was likely that she was lying to him, but he also knew that another murder had already been committed and he was running out of time fast if he wanted to find Frau Peche and save the humans who were slowly giving up their souls to fuel whatever no-doubt calamitous spell Peche was planning.

            “Fine. Change of plans.” He reached into Schade's purse and pulled out a cell phone. “Call work and tell them that you're not feeling so good all the sudden.” Nick gave her a chilly smile, which she returned after a tense minute and then took the phone.

            Schade affected a cough and made a pitiful face at the phone while it rang. “Mr. Whitlock? I'm sorry, but I'm really not-” _Cough, cough, cough_ , “I'm not feeling so well this morning. Nicky can cover my clients today. Oh, I think it's just a little-” _cough, cough, cough_ , “Cold. I think I'll be fine tomorrow. Thanks so much.” She clicked the phone off and slid it into her purse, the pitiful expression vanishing as soon as the line was disconnected. “So, boys, where are we spending my sick day?”

 

~*~

 

            Sean stared at his phone for a minute. Mr. Whitlock was Adalind's code word for being unable to communicate. Sean was trying to find a way to get her access to the morgue so she could break the curse on the humans wasting away in the critical care unit at Legacy Emmanuel. He could only assume that “Nicky” was Nick Burkhardt. Despite the maddening situation, he felt a smile tug at his lips. His Grimm was resourceful and intelligent. He must have discovered what the mirrors did and was taking steps on his own to free the victims from Frau Peche's curse.

            Peche, he was sure, was going to use the stolen energy to coerce Nick into giving her the key and the coins, or possibly to just scry the location of the items through the layers of protections that Adalind and Sean had woven over Nick and the trailer. He would just have to wait and hope that Nick was successful in foiling her plot. That didn't mean he couldn't help it along by giving Nick some uninterrupted time to work. When the call came in on the fifth body, Sean directed the sergeant not to contact Nick or Hank.

            “I've got them working on another lead right now. Get Keely and Marks on it for now – have them give report to Burkhardt and Griffin later this afternoon.”

            The sergeant nodded without showing the slightest bit of suspicion and closed Sean's door on his way out. Sean picked up his work cell and dialed Nick's number. The detective picked up on the fourth ring.

            “What are you working on?” Sean asked shortly.

            “We're researching some possible connections with the ritual. It bears a strong resemblance to the blood eagle the Vikings used for executions,” Nick lied smoothly. He was a disturbingly good liar.

            “Alright. Stay on that – we've gotten another call, but it's more of the same. You'll be more use with what you're doing. Keely and Marks will take care of the crime scene and report to you later.”

            “Sounds good, thank you, sir.”

            “Good luck,” Sean said softly, and he might have put too much into his voice, because Nick hesitated before thanking him again and hanging up.

 

~*~

 

            “Put this on.” Nick tossed one of Juliette's lab coats at Schade. “I'm sure you know how to pull it off.”

            Nick found the coat in his truck weeks before and meant to give it back to Juliette, but kept finding excuses to avoid her. First, he'd taken it to be dry cleaned, and then he'd come up with every other round about reason he could conceive of not to drop it off. At least he was finding that useful now. Schade was a bit shorter than Juliette, but otherwise they were about the same size and she fit into it neatly. With her skirt suit on underneath it, she looked every bit the professional doctor and it made Nick seethe.

            “Wait.” He held up a hand before they made it out of the tunnel and dialed Monroe. “Are you set? Call me if one of them wakes up.” Monroe and Rosalee were standing by at the hospital visiting the comatose patients as alleged close friends. Once he was off the line, he waved Hank and Schade forward.

            Dr. Harper met them in the morgue, a little surprised to see them. “I would have thought you boys would be out at the new crime scene.”

            “We're following up on a different lead,” Nick answered.

            “What can I do to help?”

            “This is Dr. Hex,” Nick introduced smoothly. If Adalind was annoyed at the fake name, she hid it well behind a confident smile. “She's a special consultant I've brought in on this case. We need to examine the four corpses.”

            Harper looked between them, but she shrugged. “Alright. But I won't be able to stay with you. We've got another one coming in, poor thing.” She led them out of the examination room and into the cold storage. She pulled each of the correct lockers open and Nick edged down one of the blankets. He looked away quickly after confirming that the mirrors were in place.

            “I'll tell the techs to leave you alone. I'm sure we'll all be plenty busy anyway.” She didn't so much as glance at Schade on her way out, just like how Farley Colt had seemed to simply fade from Wu's attention.

            “Did you do that on purpose?” Nick asked, curious and for a second forgetting how much he loathed this creature.

            “Make her not pay attention to you?”

            Schade rolled her eyes. “It's something all wesen can do if we try _really really_ hard. I didn't want her getting it into her head to look for a Doctor Hex later and realize that she doesn't exist. Way to go with an unforgettable name. So what is your plan here?”

            “I want to break one of the mirrors first and make sure the coma patient wakes up.”

            “Breaking is not necessary,” Schade said. “A scratch will do. What order were these four killed in?” Her tone was even and professional as she looked over the four corpses. She finally noticed Hank staring at her and gave him a pointed glare until he held up his hands and backed away.

            “I'm just going to watch the door.”

            “Good plan,” Schade praised snidely. “Now, what order?”

            Nick checked all the tags. The corpses were laid out on their stomachs, the sheets tented over their grotesque wings. “They're in order. This is first, he was the last.” Nick said, pointing to the appropriate bodies.

            “The last will be the easiest to break. Which means,” she continued when Nick stepped around to head for the latest victim. “If you are planning on putting yourself under its spell, that is the one you should pick. For your test, do the second to last.” She gave him a sickly sweet smile. Nick hadn't told her his plan, but he wasn't going to pretend it wasn't just to be obtuse, not when every minute could count. He pulled back the sheet on Rodriguez instead, being careful to avoid the glint of the mirrors.

            “How long should it take for the victim to wake up?” Nick asked, quickly putting on a pair of blue gloves.

            “Depends on how strong the victim is, how strong the curse is, and how long he's been under. It could take anywhere from seconds to hours.”

            Nick gave her a hard look, but she only lifted her shoulders in a shrug.

            “Let's hope it's closer to seconds,” Nick muttered. He took out the knife and held out his hand impatiently for Schade's arm. She pulled up the white sleeve of the lab coat and handed him her slender pale arm without appearing the least bit concerned. It was so tempting to just slash her wrist open, but instead he pushed the point into the soft flesh of her inner arm and then dragged the blade through the bead of blood that formed there.

            “Just a scratch?”

            “Just a scratch. Make sure you get blood on it, and do both eyes.” Nick complied, turning Rodriquez' head one way to nick the left mirror, and then hurrying around his body and turning his head the other way to scratch the right mirror. He made sure to glance down for only fractions of seconds to make sure he was in the right place, and then quickly covered the body up again.

            “Now we wait,” Schade said simply. She sat down in a chair by the desk in the corner and grabbed a magazine that was sitting on top.

            As it turned out, they waited for 17 minutes. Nick's phone startled all three of them when it went off in the ghostly silence.

            “Hey! The guy is awake! It worked!”

            “Great.” Nick hung up and went straight for their most recent victim.

            Hank met him there. “Nick... are you sure you want to do this?”

            “If she betrays us, cut her throat.” Nick handed him the knife and then took a deep breath and pulled the sheet away from James Cameron's face. He turned the man's head to the left and then crouched down so he was on eye level with the corpse. A cold sweat broke out on the back of his neck after a second of staring into those gaping silver mirrors, and then Nick saw his eyes turn black in the mirror and had a sudden, dizzying impression of mirrors looking into mirrors, creating a hallway of reflections. He gasped and jerked away from the body, falling onto his backside and scrambling away a few feet. Hank hastily threw the sheet back over Cameron's face and came around to kneel in front of Nick.

            “Are you okay?” he asked, worried.

            Nick couldn't make himself open his eyes. He drew in fast breaths, remembering those staring pits and the whole hallway of mirrors, and something dark and heavy lurking in the depths.

            “Yeah,” he gasped out when Hank repeated himself. “Just ask me the question. Quickly.”

            Hank took in a shaky breath and then asked, “What did you see, Nick?”

            _The abyss. Oh, god. I stared at it and it stared back at me!_ He was conscious of his chest rising and falling in fast pants, but he was being dragged further and further down that mirrored hallway, with the darkness closing in all around and it was _his_ darkness, he was that abyss. A hand latched onto his mouth, and remembered distantly that he'd made Hank promise to keep him as quiet as possible, but he couldn't quite connect the hand on his mouth with him making any noise. The sound of his own pulse overwhelmed the entire universe and he just wanted it to STOP.

            As if it had heard him, the world stopped spinning and lurching. He was in a hotel room, but it seemed... strange. Four dark ghosts lurked in the corners with chains wrapping them securely. Their eyes were covered and their mouths were sewn shut and they couldn't move. He recognized the first woman, the dog walker, and the second woman who had cut through the park on his way home, and the mother who found the fourth victim. The man who found Rodriquez was gone, but in his place was a small girl, huddled in a little ball and rocking back and forth.

            Nick looked around the room, but even as he started to take in the details, he felt heavier and heavier. The room grew darker. He was being chained, his eyes were being blocked. Forcing himself to focus and knowing that he only had minutes before Hank broke the spell, Nick pulled against the chains to the window. The curtains were drawn back and an older woman lay on the bed, her face lax in sleep, hands wresting on her stomach. Nick wanted to study her, but instead he forced himself over to the window and looked out, memorizing landmarks quickly and trying to place them. Downtown somewhere, for sure.

            “You can try,” a sick, cold voice said from behind him. Nick turned his head with ponderous difficulty to see the old woman was no longer sleeping. She stared at him with burning lavender eyes. “But you won't get out that way.” Her mouth curled into a vicious smile. “What a fat little bug that's wandered into my web,” she started, but then her eyes widened and her expression fell into shock and then delight. “The Grimm!” she crowed.

            Nick would have told her to fuck off, but he found that he couldn't move his lips any longer. He twisted back towards the window, eyes flying over every detail as a black blindfold knitted over his eyes. The last thing he heard was the cackling behind him, and then the room exploded in a kaleidoscope of colors and a sound like a dozen trains colliding. 

            “Nick! Nick, wake up! Nick, can you hear me? Nick?” Hank's voice grew gradually louder as the ringing in his ears subsided. He felt sick to his stomach and his lips tingled as if there was still thread holding them shut. Hank slapped his cheek gently and then tried again, harder.

            “Downtown,” Nick gasped to prevent a third slap. “Hotel. See the river... up six or seven floors.”

            “What does the building directly across the street look like?” Schade asked hurriedly.

            “Red brick, white trim.”

            “I know where she is. Get him up. She'll be stuck in a trance now, but not for much longer. We need to go.”

            “Scratch the other mirrors first,” Nick insisted. The full sentence made his head scream in agony.

            “Oh, for-!” Schade snarled. She grabbed her purse and yanked out a silver dagger that was similar to the one Hank held, though not identical. She slashed her own arm to drag a line of blood out and hurried over to the remaining two corpses. She efficiently scratched each mirror.

            “Fifth,” Nick groaned.

            “The ME will be all over that body for hours yet,” Hank protested. “There's no way we'll be able to get to it.”

            “Child. It's a child!” Nick argued.

            “Children are strong, he'll be fine for another few hours. Peche will already be trying to wake herself up, and if we don't get to her before she runs, we might not find her again. The best way we can help that child is by killing this bitch,” Schade said with unexpected venom. “Now get up!”

            Surprisingly strong for her size, she got on Nick's right side and helped Hank haul him to his feet.

            “Get your balance,” Schade ordered and then pulled a roll of white cloth out of her bag and hastily wrapped her bleeding arm. Once it was tied off, she soaked another cloth with a clear liquid and quickly cleaned up every spot of blood she'd spilled while Nick got his feet steady. The left as quickly as Nick could move, and Hank slid an arm under his shoulders as soon as they were out of sight to help him into the truck.

 

~*~

 

            Nick was able to move on his own by the time they made it to the hotel, but he felt like he was moving with the worst hangover in the history of bad alcohol-fueled decisions. Schade ditched the lab coat in the truck and replaced her heels with a pair of slipper flats she pulled out of her purse.

            “Is there anything you _don't_ have in that bag?” Hank demanded incredulously. Schade ignored him and with a few twists and pulls, turned the attractive handbag into a backpack and pulled it over her shoulders. “Damn,” Hank breathed in admiration.

            “Flirt later,” Nick snapped. He flashed his badge at the security guard in the lobby, but tried to keep his voice down and calm to not alarm any of the other guests. “We're looking for an older woman, maybe late sixties, shoulder-length hair going gray-”

            Schade thrust a picture around Nick's arm and held it at the guard's eye level.

            “Sixth or seventh floor, facing the river,” Nick finished, though he was honestly a little impressed with Schade's bag himself. “And we need that information _now_.”

            Obviously having no idea how to handle police, the guard floundered uselessly until a manager slipped over. The conservative middle-aged woman peered at the picture suspiciously and then nodded.

            “Yes, I remember her. She has a strong German accent. One moment.” The woman bustled over to a computer, gently pushed the clerk out of the way while holding one finger up to the customer in apology. “Room 707. Take a right out of the elevator, it will be third door on the left.”

            “Thank you,” Hank said hurriedly and they rushed for the hotel elevator.

            “Hank, I don't think I can make the stairs worth the time right now-”

            “I got it!” Hank abandoned the elevator and made a run for the stairwell, dodging a man in a business suit going the opposite direction.

            The elevator opened after another tense minute and Nick flashed his badge again at a couple waiting behind them. “Take the next one,” he ordered, gesturing Schade into the elevator and backing in to make sure the flabbergasted couple didn't try to push into the elevator anyway. The door closed on the woman's irate face.

            “Do you always carry your priceless silver ceremonial dagger in your purse?” Nick asked in the ensuing silence.

            “Girl's got to be prepared.”

            “With bandages, flats, and a picture of the very hexenbiest I'm hunting?”

            The doors dinged open on the fifth floor, and Nick reached for his badge, but Schade flashed the young man waiting a sultry smile and said, “Take the next one, champ.” She winked at him and he nodded stupidly, backing up with a slack look on his face. “Good boy,” Schade praised as the doors slid shut once more.

            “More hexenbiest witchcraft?”

            “First of all, don't start throwing around the word witchcraft unless you know what it means, and second of all – no. Just normal feminine charms.” She gave Nick one of her throwaway smiles to prove the point, but the doors opened on the seventh floor before Nick could respond that her charms were wasted on him.

            They slipped out of the elevator to the right and moved smoothly down the hall to 707. There hadn't been time to go through the whole warrant song-and-dance to get a key, so Nick just backed up against the opposite wall, took a deep breath and gave the door a solid kick with all his weight and every ounce of muscle he could bring to bear. He heard the door give a crack, but it was well built and heavy and would take another two or three kicks to bring it down.

            Doors started opening down the hallway, but Schade called, “Police business, please go back inside and close the doors!”

            “Impersonating-” kick, “An officer,” kick, “Is a crime!” Nick hissed at her. The door was holding better than he expected, but it was warped in the frame. He readied himself for the last kick, but the door jerked open before it could connect and he came down off balance. Frau Peche barreled him over, knocking him flat to the carpet as she ran. Stunned, Nick was on the ground long enough to see Schade's slippered feet sailing over his head. He scrambled to his feet just as Hank threw open the stairwell door with his gun drawn.

            “Police, freeze!”

            Peche didn't even slow down. She moved incredibly fast for as frail as she looked. Without a word or so much as a hesitating step, she pulled out a throwing knife and chucked it at Hank's head. Hank ducked and Peche flew past him, aimed for the stairs.

            “Oh, no you don't!” Schade snarled and she leapt forward, knocking the other hexenbiest into the door frame. Peche hissed, tossed the smaller woman off, and escaped through the stairwell door.

            “Stop!” Schade shouted, throwing herself in their path when Nick and Hank started after Peche. “She's going to be in a lobby full of people before we can get to get to her, and she'll have enough to time to get a zaubertrank out. If she feels like she needs to distract us, she will throw it on the first person she sees.”

            “So she just gets away?” Nick snarled.

            “ _No,”_ Schade growled. She held up her silver dagger with a streak of blood running down the blade toward the hilt. “Working smarter _is_ working faster.” She wrapped the knife very carefully in a white cloth. “She will be running for safety now. As soon as she calms down, she's going to notice the cut on her leg, and then she'll go to ground and use whatever energy she managed to hold onto for a curse.” She glanced down the stairwell to make sure the other hexenbiest was out the door. “And since she's already got a direct line to you, and you kind of fucked up her whole plot,” Schade said over her shoulder as she started down, looking up at Nick. “My money is on you getting the curse. So get me back to my place _now_ so I can start tracking her.”

 

~*~

 

            “Even if we do catch up with her and manage to take her alive,” Schade said when they got back to the truck, “You know you can't prosecute her for this, don't you? Even if you manage to get a conviction, which I doubt, she won't be in prison more than twenty-four hours before she's free and in the wind and coming after you.”

            “I know,” Nick said tightly. That was not going to be so good for the department. With as much media as this case was getting, they would get put over the barrel for not catching someone.

            _“But_ ,” Schade continued with a mischievous tone. “She _will_ have had an accomplice to do the menial work – snatching the victims, hanging them in the tree. Probably the big, stupid, easily impressed kind. He'll be someone you can grab. And, provided that you get out of this alive, that is, I might be able to help you find him.”

            Nick looked over the seats at her. Hank, occupied with driving, had to rely on the rear view mirror. “No shit?” Hank asked, sounded yet more impressed.

            Schade seemed pleased with his tone and preened a little. “No shit,” she affirmed, enunciating very clearly.

            Nick glared at her. “You tried to kill my aunt,” he snarled. “Don't think that I'm going to forget that or that this makes us even.”

            “Wait!” Hank gave the truck a sharp jerk in his shock and got a cacophony of honks from other drivers. “This is the psycho bitch in the lab coat that tried to kill Aunt Marie?”

            “In the flesh,” Nick sniped.

            Schade took a slow breath and looked squarely at Nick. “I know you are probably not going to believe me, but I really was just doing my job.”

            “Killing a sick woman on her death bed is your job?”

            “My job is protecting _you!_ ” Schade screamed.

            Nick was stunned into silence for a block, and then his brow pulled down in confusion while he started adding things up. “Wait... the prince. You work for the prince?”

            “ _Yes_.”

            “But why... I was told that Aunt Marie put me under his protection. Why would he order you to kill her? That doesn't make sense!” Nick accused, regaining a bit of his righteous fury.

            “Only because you don't know the whole story. We don't have a lot of time today, but I promise you, I or the prince himself will tell it to you someday. But I will tell you this – your aunt was no angel. She killed a lot – _a lot_ – of innocent wesen, helped to put several species on the endangered list, wiped out whole families, slaughtered _children_ of wesen because they might someday be 'bad.' She got worse and worse as she got older and grew very bitter after she was diagnosed. If she had been allowed to train you, she would have passed on her prejudice and her hatred to you. We couldn't risk that.”

            Nick glared. A lot of what Schade said matched up to what he was slowly beginning to learn about his aunt; Monroe called her the bogeyman of the wesen world, Colt had called her a nightmare after her father's image. And she had seemed to grow more tired and less soft the older she got. But Nick just couldn't believe that was worth ending her life, not when there was already so little of it left.

            While Nick struggled with his two conflicting images of his aunt, Schade continued softly, “She placed you under the prince's protection when you were seventeen. He's nurtured and guided you your entire adult life without you even knowing it. He cares for you. He wanted you to have the opportunity to form your own opinions, to become a better Grimm than your aunt, or your mother, or your grandfather, or any of your ancestors. Your aunt wanted that too. That's _why_ she left you with him.”

            “So that justifies you trying kill her with neurotoxin? I got the results on the test- that venom would have paralyzed her lungs and made her suffocate to death!”

            Schade winced. “That was my own doing. I was ordered to give her a zaubertrank known as schläfttod, the sleeping death. It would have completely taken away all of her pain, and she would have spent the last few hours of her life blissfully pain free, happy, and calm. And then she would have just gone to sleep and not woken up.” Schade swallowed hard and glanced away from Nick before looking back at him. She squared her shoulders. “I made a mistake. I thought it was too easy a death for someone who had caused that much pain and suffering and terror. I switched in the venom against my prince's orders.”

            “You think that makes it better?” Nick asked coldly.

            “No, but I think it shows the quality of our prince – your protector and my liege. And I think you should remember that when you finally meet him.”

            “Where is he?” Nick demanded, but Hank pulled the truck up in front of Schade's house and she was out the door before he'd even put it in park. “Where is he?” Nick yelled after her, jumping out of the passenger seat to follow.

            “Get back in the car!” Schade snapped over her shoulder. “You don't have time for this. Keep your phone on, I'll call you when I know where she's gone.”

            “Damnit!” Nick screamed, kicking the tire of the Land Cruiser. He cursed when the leg protested strenuously, having already taken several kicks to a very solid hotel door.

            “Come _on,_ Nick!” Hank urged.

            Nick cussed again and threw himself back into the passenger seat. “Drive. We need to get Monroe.”

            To Hank's credit, he didn't hesitate, but he gave Nick sideways looks the entire time to the shop. “You are going to explain all this to me later, right? Princes, whatever a zabytank is-”

            “Zaubertrank. It's a potion that usually has a nasty curse attached.”

            “Right. Potion.”

            “Think Snow White's poisoned apple,” Nick said wearily.

            “Sure. Poisoned apple.”

            Nick saw the exact moment when Hank decided that he wasn't sleeping and he was just going to with it. His expression cleared, his shoulders relaxed, and his hands loosened on the wheel. The man nodded a little to himself, and Nick saw the shift from 'this shit is insane' to 'hey, this is kind of cool.'

            “Yes, I'll tell you all about everything else later,” Nick promised, smiling despite himself. He should have known that Hank would be able to handle the wesen world.

 

~*~

 

            “I've found Peche- Burkhardt and Griffin are on their way. They've probably got the blutbad with them by now,” Adalind reported, sounding tired.

            “Where is it?” Sean asked briskly. Adalind rattled off the address and Sean typed it directly into Google. An abandoned warehouse on the river. That seemed fitting.

            “She's going to use this time to cast a revenge on him,” Adalind warned.

            “How can you be so sure? Wouldn't she use the time to try and kill you to prevent you from using her blood?”

            “No – it would be a waste first of all. A tracking spell with a fresh blood sample is like mixing a rum and coke. She would need to prepare a six course meal and a turkey to do anything to interrupt me. Rum and coke wins for time and simplicity. But Burkhardt came after her through her own spell, Sean – he broke into her curse, found her, gave her the finger, and broke out. No hexenbiest would take that lying down. She must be beyond furious. If it's the last breath she has on earth, she'll use it to take Nick Burkhardt with her, trust me.”

            “I do,” Sean assured her. He eyed the location on the map – he could make it to the scene in under twenty minutes, but to do what?

            “I told him,” Adalind said very quietly, interrupting his deliberations. It got Sean's attention immediately and he sat up straight.

            “You told him what?”

            “About his aunt. About the prince watching over him, protecting him. I didn't give him your name, so you can stop the blood pressure boil now. But I did tell him that the venom was my idea. He'll probably come chop my head off later.”

            “I'm not going to let him kill you,” Sean said, but he had to admit that a second before he'd been ready to kill her himself.

            “If it came down to him or me, we both know who you'd pick.”

            “It wouldn't. Nick already had the opportunity to let you die, and he didn't. Don't give him any further reasons to hate you and I don't think he'll go any further. Cross him again...”

            “Yeah, yeah. I know. Never cross a Grimm if you'd like to keep your throat whole.”

            Sean smiled a little. It was a fairly commonly traded phrases, even as Grimm's because so rare that crossing one was unlikely. “So if you've been mixing up a simple rum and coke, why are you so exhausted, Adalind?”

            “Be _cause_ ,” she said in a sultry bedroom voice, “I also used the opportunity to track down her lackey and your murder. I don't supposed you'd like the address?”

            Sean turned away from the computer screen. He would have to trust Nick and his friends again to take down Peche so he could cover all their collective asses with a suspect they could actually put in prison. “Give it to me.”

 

~*~

 

            Nick ran into the warehouse with Hank and Monroe on his heels. He had his wind back and despite the throbbing in his right leg, outdistanced them both quickly once he hit open ground and was able to stretch his legs. The door opened onto a 2nd floor catwalk overlooking a vast space of empty nearly empty concrete, and the vicious wretch in the middle, chanting and swaying with her arms up and face contorted in a sort of rapturous intensity. She was ringed in purple candles guttering with sickly green frame, the floor at her feet traced in shapes and symbols for three yards in all directions. Nick shouted at her to stop even as he drew his gun and made for the stairs. He could get a clear shot at her through the columns, and his training as an officer held him back from taking that fatal shot when there was a chance he could still take her down without it. He cursed himself even as he vaulted the last flight and landed hard on his feet. She was a vicious murder of the worst kind and he couldn't put her in jail – yet it wasn't in his nature to shoot first. He could hear Hank and Monroe running after him, adding their own shouts and warnings to the building noise in the warehouse.

            Peche looked at him with triumph writ large on her face, her expression split in a great smile of crooked, yellow teeth. Nick brought the gun back up.

            “Stop now, or I will shoot,” he warned, approaching her swiftly.

            She twisted both of her wrists, made fists out of her hands and dragged her arms down in a sharp motion, screaming Nick's name as she did. He lifted the gun and fired at her chest, but she finished her spell in the instant before she was hit, incongruously shouting the name, “Sean Renard!” in the breath before Nick's gun barked. He saw the hit connect, saw her stumble backwards out of the circle, but he never saw her hit the ground.

            The candles ringed around her exploded into torrents of neon green flame, belching out great clouds of noxious black smoke and quickly filling the warehouse with the scents of sulfur and burning flesh. Nick had no more than an instant to shield his eyes when something that felt akin to a Major League fastball punched him in the chest. The air left his lungs in a whoosh and he flew back, feet leaving the floor. A concrete pillar broke his flight and tossed him onto the ground, where he lay dazed and struggling to breathe. His first breath was fire and he choked on it. Warmth flooded his veins, and them more warmth, molten steel, magma. He fought to scream, but there was no air for that and all he could manage was a thin gasp. Through the thick smoke and pounding in his ears came the hexenbiest's voice like dried bones rolling in phlegm. She came to him through the poisonous cloud, crawling on her hands and knees, smile wide with victory.

            “You should know, Grimm, that no one stands against a hexenbiest without consequences!” She cackled. “But I'll do you a favor.” Her voice might have been a purr if she were decades younger, but her already unpleasant voice had been roughened by the shouting and smoke and is sounded more like a rusted saw on a lead pipe. “Liebe. Besessenheit. Tod.”

            Peche laughed in his face, her breath somehow having a distinctly rotten smell even over the sulfur and smoke. He heard Hank and Monroe screaming his name, and he wanted to shout her location, but he didn't have the air. He tried to crawl after her, but even with a bullet hole in her chest she moved more swiftly than he did and disappeared into the billowing cloud.

            Nick railed silently against the whole of the universe, but the world was already going red with black fast on its heels. He slid down into unconsciousness with her voice repeating over and over, _liebe. Besessenheit. Tod._

            He knew what at least one of those words meant.


	9. Sunshine Fallout

Chapter Nine:

Sunshine Fallout

 

            “You're _sure_ it was green flame?”

            “Yeah. Bright cartoon-warlock green. And it smelled like sulfur, and burning hair, and cinnamon.”

            Nick recognized Monroe's voice and heard Hank chime in, but he couldn't focus enough to make out the words. He had the briefest impression of shaded lamplight-

 _Darkness_.

            “-Burning up. Get some ice-”

            _Darkness._

Monroe's worried face hovered over him. Nick felt a gentle pressure on his forehead. He thought that he'd been dreaming something...something important... Nick felt his lips move, but he couldn't tell what words they formed, couldn't hear his own voice.

            “What did he say?” a distant, familiar voice asked.

            “I think... he said... Sean?”

            _Darkness_.

            _Light turned the inside of his eyelids gold. He opened his eyes slowly, wincing against the brightness. The sky above him was the color of a Caribbean sea and dotted with blinding white clouds. Just at the limits of his peripheral vision, he saw a stalk of golden wheat, and something large and dark beyond – trees._

_“You're awake.”_

_Nick turned his head and was so surprisingly not shocked to see Captain Sean Renard laying next to him, shirtless – indeed naked. And naked and Sean Renard went really well together. He was propped up on one elbow, looking down at Nick with an expression of pure love and devotion._

_“Hi,” Nick greeted, his mouth stretching into a smile. His voice was low and lazy with sleep and warmth, and he felt loose and good all over. He was comfortably sun touched, comfortably sore in unexpectedly pleasant places, and possibly missing a few joints in his arms and legs._

_Sean chuckled softly. “Hi to you. Did I wear you out?”_

_“'Course not. Just resting my eyes.”_

_“For the last 45 minutes?” Sean teased, lifting one perfectly sculpted eyebrow. He reached out with his large hand and ran elegant, articulate fingers through Nick's hair. It felt good, and Nick pushed into the caress, which gradually turned into a scratch. Nick would have been wagging his tail if he had one. Sean laughed again. “I don't think I've ever fucked someone unconscious before,” he said conversationally, but his eyes glittered with a little smugness and a lot of humor._

_“You didn't fuck me unconscious,” Nick protested. “I just thought I would close my eyes and savor the orgasm.”_

_“For 45 minutes,” Sean pointed out again._

_“For 45 minutes,” Nick affirmed reasonably. He captured Sean's hand and brought the man's wrist to his lips, kissing and nibbling at the skin. Sean let him, fingers flexing and curling to run over Nick's jaw as Nick left little marks all over the inside of his wrist and up his forearm. With a little burst of energy, Nick rolled into Sean and knocked him onto his back. He crawled over the taller man and kissed and nipped his way across Sean's beautifully defined chest. Sean was nearly hairless, just a few well behaved curls between his pecs, and a deliciously attractive line of dark hair leading down from his bellybutton to merge with a tastefully groomed frame for his deliciously attractive cock._

_“I think I need to show you the benefits of savoring orgasms,” Nick decided, working his way slowly down his lover's body._

_“Oh, do you?”_

_Nick nodded and gave Sean a mischievous look. He tongued at Sean's bellybutton and worked his way down._

_“Nick?” Sean asked, his tone suddenly worried. “Nick can you hear me?”_

_Confused, Nick looked up. “What?”_

_“I need you to wake up now,” Sean said, but his voice sounded strange. “Please wake up.”_

_Nick looked down at Sean's hips and then back up. In the instant he wasn't looking, his naked Sean Renard turned into a naked Rosalee Calvert. Nick scrambled away from her and she sat up and slapped him. “Wake up!”_

Nick came to with a gasp and a jolt, his face stinging.

            “Maybe we should take him to the hospital, it's been twelve hours-” Monroe was saying, pacing  across the space between shelves. “Nick!”

            “What's been 12 hours?” Nick asked groggily. His throat was on fire and every breath seemed to stoke it higher and hotter. He brought a shaky hand up to his throat, wincing. He blinked and a clear glass of water appeared in front of his face with a straw dangling over the edge. The bed dipped beside him and Monroe's familiar arms came around his shoulders to help him into a seated position. Nick felt not unlike he did after his one bought of pneumonia as a child, weak and miserable, and small and frail. Nick leaned against Monroe as he sipped at the straw. The first few swallows felt like acid on his dry throat, but once his throat moistened it felt heavenly. He slowly drained half the glass before Rosalee gently pulled it away from him.

            “How do you feel, Nick?” she asked softly, holding the glass out of his reach.

            “Like I've been shot. And then run over. And then caught the flu.” He tried to smile, but it seemed like a lot of effort to get all the correct muscles to cooperate and he gave up. “What happened?”

            “That nasty hexenbiest bitch-” Monroe started angrily, but Rosalee cut him off with a stern look, and before either of them could say anything else, the shop door opened and Nick finally realized that he was in Rosalee's workroom.

            Hank hurried through the door connecting the workroom to the shop with a bag of ice held between his hands. “Hopefully this will be enough to hold him over until we can figure out what to do-” Hank stopped when he saw Nick sitting more or less upright against Monroe's shoulder. Rosalee stood to take the ice from him, handing off the glass of water in exchange. Hank took her place, perching on the edge of the narrow daybed and holding the glass so the straw was again in reach of Nick's lips. Nick tipped his head forward and grabbed it before Rosalee could notice and take it away again.

            “How are you?” Hank asked when Nick came up for air.

            Nick didn't have the energy for anything resembling complete sentences, so he shortened it to, “Bullet. Truck. Flu.”

            Hank seemed to understand. He quirked a smile, but stood quickly when Rosalee returned with a bowl of ice water and a cloth. Nick's eyes were already drifting closed and he just barely heard her say, “Lay him back down,” before the darkness swept up again.  

_~*~_

_“_ What could have done this?” Monroe asked for the dozenth time. Rosalee tried to hold her temper in check. She hadn't gotten more than a few hours of sleep after Nick and Hank picked Monroe up that afternoon, and no sleep whatsoever the night before. She managed a couple hours while they took turns watching over Nick's deteriorating condition, but she was at the very frayed end of her patience rope and trying hard not to take it out on Monroe or Hank.

            “I don't know exactly,” she said for the dozenth time.

            “Could it be zabertarnk?” Hank asked

            “Zaubertrank,” Rosalee and Monroe corrected together. “And no. A zaubertrank is a potion that acts as a carrier for a curse. The energy output for the hexenbiest is pretty minimal in most cases because all she has to do is mix it up, imbue it with a sense of anticipation, and hand it off. Most of the work comes from either the creature that delivers the zaubertrank, or the victim themselves when they willingly, albeit unknowingly, eat or drink the potion.” She waved uselessly at all the books spread around the shop, occupying every available flat surface, many stacked on top of each other at angles that would have given her mother a coronary.

            “This is definitely an old fashioned revenge curse. Considering how Nick has been calling out for this 'Sean,' probably some kind of obsession curse. Tremendous amounts of energy went into casting it and it's not going to have an easy solution. Peche would have catered it specifically to Nick, and it would have her own unique stamp, even if it's a curse that is widely used by hexenbiest in general. Like... I don't know... three master painters all painting the same woman. Same subject, same background, same pose, and she looks like the same woman in all the portraits, but the finished paintings are completely different.”

            She'd already explained this, but both of the men were worried, and frustrated that there was nothing they could do _right now_. She was just as frustrated, but she at least had some idea of what was going on while they were entirely clueless, especially Hank, who was getting a faster crash course in wesen and the creature world than even Nick.

            “Can we at least find out who the woman is?” Hank asked.

            Rosalee was completely lost for several seconds before she remembered her own analogy. She threw her hands up. “Maybe, but I don't have enough to go on. Green flames and purple candles, black smoke, the smell of burning flesh or hair, sulfur, and cinnamon. I admit that the cinnamon is odd, but everything else is pretty standard fare for a hexenbiest curse casting. And you say the casting circle was destroyed when the curse went up, so I can't even look at that for clues.” She shrugged. “We're going to have to wait until Nick wakes up to see if there's anything else he can tell us. Right now, we have nothing to go on.”

            “There's got to be something in all these books,” Hank protested. “Or Crazy Aunt Marie's trailer?”

            Rosalee lifted her hands, not even willing to waste the breath to point out that they'd spent the last twelve hours combing over all the books with nothing but about three hundred 'it-could-be-this's to show for it. “We need to get some sleep and come back at this fresh,” she decided finally, starting to pick up books. She slipped little pieces of paper into each as she closed it to mark the spot. Several others had so many little squares of paper sticking out of them that they looked a cat had tried to shred the contents before the book was closed.

            She'd gotten maybe a quarter of the books picked up before Hank and Monroe joined her on the floor to clean up the rest.

~*~

            Feeling alert and rested, Nick woke just after noon the next day. Monroe was sleeping in what had to be the most uncomfortable position possible, slouched forward in a chair with his chin on his chest and his hands dangling between his legs.

            “Monroe,” Nick called gently. The blutbad still came awake with a startled shout, eyes wide and hands immediately coming up like he was expecting trouble.

            “Oh, man,” Monroe moaned. “I feel asleep! I was supposed to be watching you.”

            Nick couldn't help but chuckle. “I'm fine, obviously. I'm actually going to get up. Why don't you take the bed?” He turned and put his feet on the floor, stretching both arms above his head and leaning backwards until his back gave a few satisfying pops.

            “Are you alright, man?” Monroe asked, frowning.

            “Yeah, I feel great. Whatever Frau Peche did to me must have worn off. How long was I out?”      

            “Almost 18 hours,” Hank answered while Monroe was counting up the time on his fingers. “You look better. How do you feel?”

            “Really fantastic. Like a good lay and a 18 hours of sleep fantastic,” he said truthfully. He did feel like he'd gotten a good lay too, all warm and loose and relaxed. “What is today?”

            “Wednesday.”

            “Oh, shit. I missed work yesterday?” Nick scrubbed a hand down his face and yawned. He knew he should be more upset about missing work when the department was dealing with a psychotic serial killer on a spree, but he couldn't really find it in himself to feel anything other than happy. He stood and urged Monroe into the still warm bed. The blutbad was snoring in seconds.

            “Don't worry about it,” Hank said, but he was frowning and obviously worried himself. He handed Nick a coffee that was most likely meant for Monroe, since it had more milk than coffee. “I told the captain that you sustained a minor injury while we were chasing down a suspect and needed some sleep. Turns out it's all good anyway – apparently while we were chasing down that lead, an anonymous young woman called the station and reported seeing a lot of very interesting things in this guy's car while she was in the supermarket parking lot. Renard went out himself with Keely and Marks and they caught the guy, literally, with his dick in his hand. He was taking a piss on the side of the road, was so startled by their arrival that he got tangled in his pants, fell, and pissed all over himself. They found bundles of rope, black thread, a box of cut mirrors, and a great bloody cleaver all in the back seat of his car. Not only that, but he has defensive wounds on his forearms and blood under his fingernails.”

            “That's convenient,” Nick said, snorting. “And I _really_ need a toothbrush and a shower. And a toilet.” He sucked down the rest of the coffee and gave Hank a sunny smile as he passed him to the bathroom, dropping the empty cup in the small trashcan by the door.

            “Did you need a ride anywhere?” he called back over his shoulder a few minutes later as he headed for the door.

            “No...” Hank said slowly. “Rosalee took me to get my car this morning. Are you sure you're okay?”

            “Yeah, Hank, I'm fine. I'm going home to shower and change, and I'll meet you back at the station? Maybe tonight we can grab a couple beers and I'll tell you about wesen and all the 'weird shit' we've been dealing with lately. Monroe makes really fantastic vegetarian... everything.” Nick winked at him. “If you're nice to him, he might just make some too.”

 

~*~

 

            The headache throbbing behind his right eye could have been hangover, but Sean hadn't been so lucky as to have time for that kind of fun the night before. He technically could have put himself back on sick leave since the Hanging Murders culprit was dragged in two days before, but he decided that if he could stay on his feet long enough to handle the investigation and even manage to be there for the take down, he was well enough for work. He felt a little rush remembering the aswang, a cold flush somewhere between fury and victory. The aswang was one he'd encountered before; Thero Maulkins escaped punishment after they linked him to the death of a pair of prostitutes. Considering the nature of the killer, they were unable to produce a murder weapon or account for the strange marks left by said murder weapon. The murder weapon had been his teeth and claws, of course, and that was a hard thing to account for in a kehrseite court of law. So Maulkins got a mistrial, and one week later he was sentenced to seven gladiatorial games, which he won with apparent ease before leaving the city.

            Enraged at the first sight of the banished aswang, Sean focused his aura on the man and let it go, literally knocking him off his feet. Maulkins went into a full woge in surprise and anger and defiance, but Keely was already rolling him onto his stomach and cuffing him while Marks read him his Miranda rights and a dozen other officers circled with their guns drawn. It was a good day for Portland Metro.

            Sean nodded to a pair of officers passing him in the hallway, smiled at their enthusiastic congratulations. One just barely stopped himself from patting Sean on the back, and Sean smirked at the harsh whisper of his partner giving him shit over it as they hurried down the hall. Nick came jogging up the stairs just as Sean reached the juncture to turn for the homicide department, and the man gave him such a brilliant smile that Sean stopped dead in the hallway. It was not a smile of congratulations, or even the shared glory and relief of catching a killer, it was a million-megawatt smile of unrestrained joy and it was pointed directly at Sean.      

            “Morning, Captain!” Nick greeted cheerfully. He rocked forward for half a step and then withdrew, putting his hands in his pockets in an obvious attempt to keep them to himself. Sean had the sudden impression that Nick was about to hug him and almost wished they weren't in the middle of the hallway. He had a momentary fantasy of being somewhere just a touch more private and encouraging the Grimm with both of his arms held wide. He imagined the way Nick would fit against him – they were perfectly matched in height so Nick's head would rest just exactly on Sean's shoulder. Sean shook himself out of the fruitless fantasy and instead returned a more professional smile.

            “Detective Burkhardt. How are you feeling?” Sean tipped his head slightly towards the open department doors and Nick fell in step with him, swaying slightly towards him and then away. Sean again felt sure that Nick had stopped himself from reaching for him. He felt the whisper brush of Nick's shoulder against his arm and then man swerved away to put more distance between him. The pleasant fantasy of Nick wanting to touch him vanished under a wash of concern. Not only had he not seen the man so happy in years, but Nick kept to himself with rigid adherence to personal space. He didn't even walk so closely to Hank, and was even more likely to offer a nod of greeting rather than a handshake.

            “I'm feeling really great actually.”

            “Detective Griffin said you were injured chasing down a suspect?”  

            “Just a tumble,” Nick said dismissively. “Fell down some stairs. I had to promise Hank to stay off my feet for a day to keep him from taking me to the hospital.” Another of those adoring smiles came out when Sean stopped to look at him. And that was exactly the correct word – adoring.

            “I don't like you taking chances with your health, Detective. Maybe you should get checked anyway, especially after a fall down stairs.” It was a weak excuse to suggest Nick's strange behavior was due to a head injury, but there were myriad other reasons he could be acting so strangely and Sean didn't like about 99% of them.

            “I'm fine,” Nick said with a little facial shrug. “Didn't know you cared,” he continued in a little teasing voice, expression turning simply inviting, lips curved up, eyes partially lidded.

            “I do care when one of my officers might be suffering from a head injury, Detective.” Sean frowned, hoping that if he repeated Nick's title enough it would remind the Grimm that he was at work and in the middle of a nosy gossip-happy police department. “Why don't you take the rest of the day off and go to the doctor, just to be sure.”

            “I already missed the take down,” Nick protested. “I can't shirk out of the paperwork too.”

            “I-”

            “Nick!” Hank jogged up to them and took Nick by the elbow. Only when he pulled the man back a few paces did Sean realize that Nick had somehow crept into his personal space and was less than a foot away from him. “I thought we were going to get breakfast,” Hank said in a false too-cheerful voice. “Captain, morning,” he greeted belatedly. “Great job on the arrest.”

            “Keely and Marks made the actual arrest,” Sean responded distractedly, eyes raking over Nick's strangely relaxed body and gorgeously open expression.

            “I'm sorry we missed it.”

            “You two were running down important leads. Just bad timing. Sorry I wasn't able to call you in for the arrest.”

            “No problem,” Hank assured him. “Nick and I will just take care of wrapping up the paperwork.”

            Sean nodded after a moment, eyebrows still pulled into a frown. “Alright. Make sure he gets checked out by a physician today.” He took a step back and continued to his office.

            “Oh, I will,” Hank promised, squeezing Nick's arm when the detective shifted his weight as if to follow Sean.

            As he walked to his office, Sean made sure to thank and congratulate Keely and Marks again to distract the precinct from Nick and his strange behavior. The department was flushed with celebratory victory and no one appeared to notice the exchange between him and Burkhardt. Hopefully whatever was wrong with Nick was cleared up quickly though, or it wouldn't take long to make the rumor mill. That was all he needed – rumors that he was romantically involved with one of his detectives. One of his male detectives.

            _Goddess,_ Sean thought with a sigh once he stepped into the relative privacy of his office. _Humans are so complicated._ Sometimes he really got tired of the politics.

            Glancing at Nick through the partially closed blinds, he called Adalind. “I think Nick might be under some kind of curse or zaubertrank.” He was careful not to let his suspicion show, but was nonetheless grateful and relieved when Adalind was genuinely startled by the announcement. “We'll need to keep an eye on him. If it's something he and his little pack can't figure out, they might come to you. Be helpful,” Sean warned needlessly.

 

~*~

 

            Hank dragged Nick out of the building and down the street to a coffee shop. They ordered coffee and pastries and Hank hustled Nick to a small table outside.

            “Man, what are you _doing_?” Hank hissed once they were settled. He leaned forward just enough that they weren't likely to be overheard.

            Nick lifted one eyebrow. “Drinking my coffee?”

            “I meant back at the station!”

            “Making conversation?”

            “Oh, right. Because you _always_ 'make conversation' with Captain Renard when you're about six inches from his face!” Hank ripped open several packets of sugar and dumped them into the coffee cup.  “You are lucky that everyone is so caught up in this take down that they weren't paying attention to you.”

            “I wasn't doing anything!”

            “You were looking at that man like he was every _single_ piece of candy you ever loved all wrapped up with a bow and your name on it!” Hank knew that Nick liked men, which was still a little bit of strange thing for him to wrap his mind around, but to see his friend and partner looking like he would happily climb up their captain like a tree? Strange didn't even begin to cover that one. “I don't know what that old crazy bitch did to you, but why the hell would she make you attracted to Captain Renard?”

            Nick snorted, stirring lazily at his coffee with one hand while he bit half the top off his muffin. He swallowed quickly and chased it down with a gulp of coffee.

            “She didn't _make_ me attracted to Captain Renard. I've thought he was sexy since the moment I met him when I was... seventeen?” Nick smiled, as if this was not a strange confession at all.

            Hank stared at him. About nine responses came to mind immediately ranging from, _you never told me that_ (duh) to _ewww_ (maybe not the most adult response) to _are you crazy?!_ but the one that came out was, “You met Captain Renard wen you were seventeen?”

            Nick nodded. “He was Detective Renard at the time – came to my high school and gave a presentation. He's the reason I went into the police academy in the first place.”

            That one had about another dozen responses attached to it, but Hank just worked his mouth stupidly while he tried to get one to come out right. “Okay,” he said finally, waving both of his hands to clear his head of the tumultuous swirl of question marks and exclamation points weaving around inside his head. “Okay, so I guess Renard might be an attractive guy if you go for that kind of thing,” he admitted very reluctantly, because he didn't really like to think of his boss and sex in the same conversation. “But you've never _acted_ like you thought he was attractive.”

            “Of course not,” Nick said dismissively. He unwrapped the rest of his poppy seed muffin and crushed it in his palm. “That's not something I would exactly want making the rounds.”

            “Right, see that make sense. So why were you looking at him like you were two breaths away from sucking his tonsils out?”

            Nick winced. “Bad image.”

            Hank joined him in the wince and had to agree with him. “Sorry. But question is still valid.”

            “I wasn't.”

            “Yes, you were!”  
            “I was just happy to see him, that's all.” Nick blushed a little and then popped his compressed ball of poppy seed muffin into his mouth and chewed.

            “I guess that at least confirms which 'Sean' you were calling out for,” Hank muttered unhappily. “When I get my hands on that bitch...” Hank wasn't sure he'd ever been so mad at a woman in his life, and with four ex-wives that counted for something. He glared down at his pastry, imaging getting his hands wrapped around that psycho witch's throat.

            “I'm fine,” Nick volunteered after a solid minute of Hank imagining the colors Peche's face would turn without oxygen. “It's probably just some lingering effect of the curse. I give you permission to pinch me if I start behaving oddly around Sean again.”

            Hank reached over instantly and pinched Nick's upper arm. His friend pulled away from him and gave him a dirty look.

            “What was that for?”

            “You can't call the captain by his first name,” Hank ordered pointing at Nick to show he was serious.

            “I didn't mean to. Sheesh, calm down.”

            “This is serious, Nick.”

            “I know!” Nick rubbed at his arm and glared at Hank. For his part, Hank ignored him and figured he was going to be doing a lot of pinching. It was a good thing he had lots of practice on his cousins growing up.

            By the time they got back to the station, Nick had settled into something a little less psychotically happy, but he still flashed a smile that could light up a room when Renard left his office and approached them.

            “No resting on our laurels,” Renard said, handing Hank a folder and appearing not to notice Nick's bright smile. “You've got another case. I imagine after all the press the Hanging Murders received, we're going to be getting a little bit of a spree, so look sharp.” He nodded at Hank, gave Nick a cursory glance and returned to his office.

            “See,” Nick said teasingly, “I behaved.”

            Hank rolled his eyes. God, it was going to be a long day. He flipped the file open, thin with only the initial report that they would be confirming on scene with the responding officers. “Young man found dead at a roach motel downtown.”

            “Let's go,” Nick responded, grabbing his jacket off the back of his chair and leading Hank out of the office.

             At least there didn't appear to be any strange rituals, or impossible cause of death, or claw marks. They might even be lucky and have just a run of the mill human murderer on their hands, and he said as much when they made it to the car.

            “You were saying?” Nick asked thirty minutes later, looking down at their victim, who was a completely normal corpse. Except that his feet were missing, and his legs had been _gnawed on_ up to the knee.

            “Damnit,” Hank complained.

 

~*~

 

            “So, how was he today?” Monroe asked quietly. Nick was upstairs changing and taking a shower. The chase for their suspect had landed the Grimm in the mud at the riverside and he was covered in it from neck to knees. The suspect had escaped right into the river and didn't resurface where they could see him. They'd spent the rest of the day combing both banks looking for tracks but hadn't turned up anything useful.

            Hank shrugged and accepted a beer. “He was fine as long as we weren't around Captain Renard. In fact, he seemed better than fine. Fast, strong... happy. I swear he was laughing as he chased that guy down and if he hadn't jumped into the river, Nick would have had him. I was lagging a hundred yards behind _at least_. Maybe I need to start hitting the gym again,” Hank muttered.

            “Don't let it get to you,” Monroe said with a smile. “Nick is pretty fast on his own and being a Grimm gives him lots of extra _umph_.”

            “You're telling me. Makes me wonder how much he's been holding back the last six months so I wouldn't catch on.”

            Monroe shrugged. “How did he act when you guys were around your captain?”

            “Like Renard was the sun and the moon, and the cherry on his ice cream sundae.” Hank pulled an unhappy face. They'd thankfully avoided Captain Renard for the rest of the day, but he remembered the sappy look on Nick's face and didn't know how they'd managed to get out of there without anyone else noticing.

            “Yeesh.”

            “Why did she pick Renard anyway?” Hank asked as Rosalee joined them from the kitchen. “I mean, I know you said it was some kind of curse, but why _Renard?_ ”

            Rosalee shook her head. “I don't know.”

            “Could be just because he's Nick's _male_ boss?” Monroe suggested.

            Hank waved the suggestion off. “Nick is gay, and apparently has already had a crush on Renard for like... 13 years. I don't think he minds the _male_ part. _”_

            “13 _years?”_ Monroe clarified and then shook his head to get back on track. “Well _,_ you know that he's gay, and we know that he's gay,” he pointed out, although Rosalee had never actually been told that in so many words - oops, “But that's not common knowledge otherwise. Plus, Renard is Nick's boss, so if she wants to embarrass him by making him fall in love with someone, his boss is a good place to start. It would be a nightmare if anyone found out, right?”

            “Yeah... but that seems pretty petty as far as revenge goes,” Hank argued. “If this curse was really as difficult to cast as Rosalee says, seems like a stupid thing to waste it on.”

            “Maybe Nick interrupted her when he shot her and she didn't actually get the whole curse off?”

            Rosalee shook her head a little, “No, from your description with the sudden explosion of the candles and the smoke, she must have completed the curse. And Hank's right, just making Nick fall in love with his captain would be too light for a hexenbiest who wants revenge that badly. There's more to this that we haven't discovered yet.”

            “Will you three stop worrying?” Nick called as he came clattering down the stairs in a pair of sweats and a t-shirt, his hair still damp and tussled from a vigorous toweling. “I'm fine.”

            “You're fine _now_ ,” Rosalee corrected. “These curses are nasty, Nick. It might take days or even months for you to really get hit with the effects.”

            “Maybe we should go to Adalind,” Hank suggested. “She's a hexen-”

            “No,” Nick said sharply. “Absolutely not. I'm not getting near that woman if I don't absolutely don't have to, and there's no way I want to be indebted to her. I think I'd rather die.”

            “Nick, don't say that!” Rosalee said hurriedly. “We're doing our best, but she might be a last resort.” When Nick's eyes narrowed and his expression set into something best described as mulish, she continued, “Do you remember anything that might help us figure this out? Anything at all?”

            Nick's expression cleared and then his brows pulled into a frown while he thought. “She did say something... something... Lie-be. Ve-sesssenheit. Tod.”

            “Liebe, Besessenheit, tod?” Monroe repeated.

            “Yes.” Nick nodded and smiled. “That's it. Mean anything to you?”

            “Well, it's German,” Monroe confirmed unhappily. “It means 'Love. Obsession....Death.'”

            “That doesn't sound good,” Nick said, not sounding concerned in the least. “I trust Rosalee to figure this out. Can we eat now? I'm starved.”


	10. The Fault of Fathers

Chapter Ten:

The Fault of Fathers

 

            Nick twisted his neck and watched as Monroe went from upside-down with his ass in the air (something he called “down dog” that Nick thought was an innuendo until the punch line didn't come), and then bent his arms, put his nose nearly on the mat and slid smoothly through his hands until his hips were an inch off the mat and his nose was pointed at the ceiling.

            “This is called up dog,” Monroe explained, looking over one shoulder at Nick, still gamely trying to figure out the down part. “Come on, try it.”

            Nick looked dubiously down at his hands. It looked easy enough when Monroe did it, but as soon as he bent his elbows, Nick had a feeling he was going to end up on his face. Monroe finally got to his knees and crawled across the rearranged living room to Nick's mat. He put one hand on the small of Nick's back and the other on his chest. Applying gentle pressure, he assisted Nick through the transition and then pushed on Nick shoulders to get him to pull them down.

            “This is uncomfortable,” Nick said finally.

            “It feels great when you get some practice,” Monroe reassured him.

            “Do you think Sean does yoga?” Nick asked, pushing up a little higher until his thighs left the mat, and that felt a little better.

            “Umm,” Monroe started uncomfortably, “Maybe? Hey, if he does, he'll be really impressed with your down dog, right?”

            Nick laughed and smiled in joy- it was a good point. He would have to work harder, then. “Let's do it again.”

            “Right. So pull your hips right back as if there's a string tied to your tailbone. Perfect! Anyone would be impressed with that,” Monroe praised, putting slight pressure between Nick's shoulder blades.

            “Rosalee said you're not supposed to encourage me,” Nick reminded him, obligingly peddling his feet and then sliding through his arms without being asked. It wasn't exactly graceful, but he ended up in more-or-less the right position without falling.

            “And Rosalee is right, of course. Sorry.”

            “It's okay,” Nick said cheerfully. “I like talking about him.” He knew that he was under a curse, but it wasn't like he hadn't entertained a few fantasies about the captain before Peche cursed him, and he didn't see how there was any harm in it.

            “Which is why we're not supposed to encourage you,” Monroe pointed out. He crawled back to his mat and went through a several transitions from one pose to another, Nick following along with a few minor corrections from Monroe.

            “You know... this is a weird curse,” Nick continued conversationally between poses. “Mostly I just feel really happy all the time. I don't think I've been this happy since before my parents died. Maybe not ever.”

            “Just because you feel happy now doesn't mean you're going to stay feeling happy.” Monroe put one foot up the air and then brought it forward into a lunge. Nick tried the progression, ended up on his knee instead of his foot and had to wobble upright.

            “Maybe not,” Nick argued once he was steady. “Maybe I fought off the worst of it and I'm just cursed to be happy.”

            “I don't know if that would be a good thing in the long run. Always being happy?”

            Nick didn't see where that would be a problem, either. He liked seeing his captain every day, even when the man was mad, and he worked hard to make Sean proud of him. He wanted nothing more than to see Sean smile – and since that didn't happen much, it made him even more happy when he caught a glimpse of any joy or pleasure. That didn't sound like a bad thing to him, and his performance at work had only improved over the last two months.

            “As long as Sean is happy, I don't mind.”

            Monroe didn't answer, moving instead into another pose that Nick tried to copy with mixed results. Before Monroe could come up with something to say, the sound of a car door opening and slamming shut pulled their attention toward the door.

            Monroe sniffed the air. “Hank's here!” he said, sounding relieved.

            Nick twisted up to look at the clock. “He's an hour early.”

            The bell rang and Monroe dropped to his knees, calling that the door was open. That seemed strange to Nick, as he always kept the door locked, but before he could lecture Monroe on leaving the door unlocked even when he was at home, Hank pushed it open and forged into the living room. He stopped behind the couch and his face pulled into a look of comical uncertainty.

            On his knees with one shoulder on the floor and the opposite arm over his head, Nick grinned at his partner's startled face. “We're doing yoga,” he explained. “Want to join us?”

            “No... thanks. Maybe next time,” Hank said in that tone of voice he normally reserved for crazies and ex-wives. “We got a call.”

            Nick unwound himself and reached for his phone. “I didn't get a call.”

            “They called me first and I said I would let you know. Thought I would just come over early, since I figured you'd both be up.”

            Nick rolled his eyes. “You just want one of Monroe's breakfast burritos,” he accused.

            “Guilty as charged.” Hank patted his belly.

            “I'm going to _start_ charging,” Monroe grumbled, but Nick knew that he liked the company and the compliments, so he was too worried. Nick took a second to stretch his other shoulder and then climbed to his feet. As dubious as he was about yoga and pilates in the beginning, he had to admit that he felt much more limber and energetic over the two and a half months Monroe had been easing him into the practice. They ran when they had time, and lately Nick had been getting up early enough to join his friend for pilates or yoga without needing Monroe to wake him.

            “Looking into a new career as a pretzel?” Hank asked, lips quirked.

            “Monroe says it helps control my Grimm-ness.”

            “Grimm-ness?”

            Nick grinned and tapped Hank's shoulder as he continued past him to the stairs. “It's what makes me a bad ass!”

            He jogged up the stairs before Hank could respond. Monroe had two burritos wrapped up in foil and thermoses of coffee ready by the time Nick finished a quick shower and made it back down stairs.

            “So what do we have?” Nick asked as they walked to the car. He took a sip of his coffee and then pulled it away to cool down.

            “Pair of bodies found down by the river – this is the best coffee I think I have ever had.”

            “French press,” Nick answered, humming in agreement. “Drowning?”

            “According to the officer on scene, looks like they were executed and then dumped upstream.” He drew one hand across his neck in illustration and then juggled the thermos and burrito while he got his door open. “We've already got unis combing the river to see if we can't find the kill site, but it will be a hard find. It rained last night and we won't be sure of how long the boys have been in the water until the ME gets her hands on them.”

            Nick nodded to show he was listening and unwrapped his burrito. Monroe had it stuffed full of eggs, vegan not-sausage that Nick was violently opposed to until he tasted it, and seasoned potatoes.

            “Man, you are so lucky to live with someone who cooks like this. You think if I turned gay, I can get someone to cook for me like this?”

            Nick rolled his eyes. “We're just roommates.” A horrible thought occurred to him and his stomach went cold, the delicious burrito suddenly an uncomfortable weight in his gut. “You don't think that Sean thinks-?”

            “No way,” Hank said hurriedly. “Does anyone at the station even know?”

            Sean knew, because he interviewed Monroe during the Hanging Murders, but did he remember?  “It's going to get out eventually, and no one will believe we're just roommates, and Sean will think that I'm sleeping with Monroe!” Nick stared wide-eyed at his coffee cup. “I have to move out. Right now, today. Can you drop me off at a real estate office?”

            “We've got two dead bodies at the river!”

            “This is more important!” Nick said anxiously.

            “Hey, hey,” Hank soothed, looking more than a little alarmed. “Captain Renard trusts you, and he wouldn't want you to live by yourself.”

            Nick considered this idea with no small amount of suspicion. It was true that the captain always kept a closer eye on officers who lived alone and he encouraged personal relationships and even roommates so officers had someone to go home to at night.

            “Besides, who else is going to help you with your yoga?” Hank added.

            That was another thing to consider. The yoga was important, because Sean was very fit and he probably did yoga, and it would be better if Nick was good at yoga too. “I guess you're right...” Nick considered for a moment longer, and then nodded. “He does trust me.” This decided, Nick went back to his burrito, once again happy with the world.

 

~*~

 

            Hank waited until Nick was out of the car and a dozen yards closer to the river before patting at all of his pockets. “Damn, forgot my cell phone. I'll catch up.”

            Nick nodded and continued down the slope towards the yellow crime scene tape, a definite bounce in his step, and humming something tuneless as he went. Hank stepped back to the car and waited for several seconds until Nick was out of earshot and then several seconds more because Nick's hearing was scary good.

            Keeping an eye on the path in case his partner came back up, Hank dialed the phone. “Hey, Monroe. Man, he's definitely getting worse. Nick just about had a panic attack in the car when he decided Captain Renard might not like him living with a guy! No kidding, half a second away from hyperventilating-”

            “Nick is still living with that friend?”

            Hank jumped about a mile straight up and nearly dropped his phone. He fumbled it from hand to hand and spun to face the captain once he'd disconnected the line. “C-Captain. What are you doing here?”

            Renard quirked an eyebrow at him and Hank felt his cheeks heat a little. He was just grateful that he didn't show color well as he apologized. Renard excused him with a little wave of the fingers.

            “Wev'e already got an ID on the victims,” the captain explained, gesturing to a file in his left hand. “They're Congressman Garza's two youngest sons.”

            Hank cursed under his breath. Any death was a tragedy and young deaths made his blood boil, but add on top of that the media storm that the execution-style murder of a congressman's children would bring? They'd barely gotten out of the media storm from the Hanging Murders, and were back in the spotlight. Renard seemed to read his mind and let out a heavy breath, nodding slightly in silent agreement. He made a gesture for Hank to proceed him down the slope.

            “Why would Detective Burkhardt be concerned about my reaction to his living situation?” Renard asked once they started moving.

            “Well... he's just a little worried about reactions if rumors get around that he's moved in with a single man,” Hank lied uncomfortably, though in all fairness it wasn't totally a lie. “But they're just roommates!”

            Renard frowned at him, pausing briefly on the path. “I already knew he was living with a friend.”

            “You did?”

            “I conducted the interview when... Monroe, was it? When he came in for the Hanging Murders two months ago. You were there,” Renard pointed out.

            “Oh, yeah...” Hank agreed, letting out a sigh of relief. In all the hype and the insanity surrounding those awful three days, he'd forgotten about Monroe coming in to volunteer information.

            Renard stopped Hank with a hand on his arm. Brows pulled down even tighter over the bridge of his patrician nose, the captain waited for Hank to look at him before asking, “Is Detective Burkhardt being hazed?”

            “No! Not at all!” Hank hurried, having visions of the whole department going through sensitivity training again.

            Renard gave him a considering look. “I expect you to inform me if he is. I don't tolerate that kind of behavior in my department.”

            “He's not!” Hank reassured him, pulling out a nervous smile. “And I don't think anyone in the department would haze anyway.” He cursed himself quietly – he'd just as good as told the captain that Nick was gay, something he was sure his friend would not appreciate. At least, he wouldn't appreciate it if he was in his right mind. Under the curse, he would probably just think it was Sean's right to know everything about his private life, and that could get dangerous in a hurry. Hank vowed to redouble his efforts to keep Nick in check until they could figure it out – he could just see the man marching into the captain's office to tell him all about his secret life as a Grimm (what the law would consider a vigilante) and then ending up in a state hospital with little cups of pills and bad tempered nurses who took away his shoe laces.

            Renard watched him for a moment more, but finally nodded and continued down to the crime scene. Hank watched in mounting dread as the captain went straight to Nick and pulled him aside to speak with him privately. Hank wished he had some of that crazy good hearing just then, because he had exactly zero excuse to get any closer to them than he already was without it looking suspicious.

            Nick frowned at first, but then smiled one of those million-megawatt smiles that he reserved just for the captain. He reached out and pressed a hand into the captain's hip as an obvious compromise between not touching and full-body hug. Hank groaned in embarrassment on his friend's behalf, but they were at least faced away from the rest of the team, and no one else saw Renard's hiked eyebrow and Nick's positively inviting smile. Nick was completely oblivious to the fact that he was inappropriately touching his superior officer, and gave Renard another smile and a strange little inclined-head bow as he backed away and returned to Hank's side.

            “You're right,” Nick said, nearly glowing with pleasure. “He does trust me, and he wants me to be happy, and he likes Monroe.”

            “Uh... yeah.”

            “So, these boys had their Ids tied around their wrists with zip ties,” Nick continued, changing the subject as if this wasn't one of the strangest mornings they'd had to date. “Congressman Hector Garza's youngest sons. George, 15, and Vincent, 17. Media is going to be all over this one.”

            Hank tried to put the insanity of the morning behind him and get into the right head space for the job. It was a skill that all law enforcement personnel learned sooner or later – whatever was going on outside of work got pushed away so they could focus on the case. When the case was done, it got put away so they could focus on their personal lives – that second bit was harder and Hank hadn't quite got the hang of it yet.

            “Right,” he said on a deep breath. “So someone wanted us to be able to identify them easily and quickly.”

            Nick nodded and they both turned to where the bodies were being photographed and CSI techs poked around for evidence, but stopped at a sudden commotion.

            “Let me see my sons!”

            They turned to see the congressman in an impeccable suit and charcoal great coat, wild around the eyes, and struggling against a pair of uniformed officers trying to hold him at the police line. A veritable flood of media were already streaming down the hill behind him.

            “Sir?” Nick gestured to the media, getting Renard's attention. Hank was just glad that Nick remembered not to call the captain by his first name in public. Renard took the scene in at a glance and strode to the line. He called for the officers to let Garza and the younger man with him through, but then caught the congressman bodily himself. With surprising strength and agility, he moved the man away from his dead sons and into the protection of a grove of trees at the waterside. The man collapsed against Renard like he knew him, and the younger man accompanying him stopped just inside the police line to look worriedly after the congressman.

            “That's a new one,” Nick muttered, eyes tracking the older Garza.

            “He's wesen?”

            Nick nodded. “Not one I recognize. Some kind of cat.”

            The younger man turned toward them and then approached a moment later, taking his hands out of his pockets. He glanced curiously at Hank, but his gaze focused on Nick with the intensity of recognition. He held out a hand and said, “A balam.”

            Nick blinked, but didn't miss a beat when the younger man woged into the aspect of a dark furred cat with delicate silver markings. He shook his head and a moment later was back to being a charming young Latino with dark eyes and tanned skin. Hank jumped a bit, but he thought he covered it up well. Nick took his hand and shook firmly and Hank did the same when the wesen offered him the same grip. He was relieved that the man's hand felt like... a man's hand.

            “Quaili Garza,” he introduced.

            “Detective Burkhardt, my partner, Detective Griffin.”

            “I know who you are,” Garza said softly, his sharp eyes looking them over. “I've never met a kehrseite-schlich-kennen before,” he continued conversationally. “Then again, I've never met a Grimm before either.”

            “A what cannon?” Hank asked in an undertone, keeping one eye on Garza.

            “A human in the know.”

            “Ah.”

            “Any relation to...?” Nick asked, gesturing towards the trees where Renard was standing with his body blocking the smaller Hector Garza from sight of the press.

            “He's my uncle.”

            “And you knew his sons well?”

            Garza's face shuttered in pain and sorrow. “George and Vincent, yes. We're a tight-knit family.”

            “I'm sorry for your loss,” Hank offered, the real pain on the wesen's face reminding him that there were two dead boys behind him and they were no different than two dead human boys. Garza nodded in acknowledgment, but didn't respond.

            “We're sorry to have to ask you, Mr. Garza, but do you know of anyone who might have reason to hurt Vincent and George?” Nick continued, moving casually into the man's space. They were of a height, but Nick seemed somehow more present, larger. Garza noticed the invasion of his space, but his eyes only flickered briefly down to where their bodies nearly touched. Hank wasn't sure if Nick was just trying to keep the conversation private, or if it was some kind of Grimm thing, and made a note to ask later.

            “Not them, no,” Garza answered after a pause. “But my uncle is a congressman and important in certain other circles too.” He gave Nick a significant look, and Nick nodded to show understanding.

            “You feel this may be aimed at the congressman?” Hank clarified, because someone needed to have questions and observations that could actually be added to a report at the end of this whole sorry mess.

            Garza nodded. “Certainly. I'm happy to come into the station and offer you an official statement,” he said with gentle emphasis on “official.”

            Nick glanced around to make sure no one was listening in, and, seeing the cameras pointed casually in their direction, herded Garza a little further down the beach where the lap of the river on the rocks would help to mask his whisper when he asked, “Would you like to talk to me later tonight?”

            Garza relaxed marginally and nodded.

            Hank watched the exchange and wondered if they would ever be putting together an honest case report again.

~*~

           

            Sergeant Wu intercepted them on the way to their desks, Garza walking quietly between them. “Captain wants to see you.”

            “How did he even make it back before us?” Hank asked, puzzled. Nick only shrugged, not curious in the slightest and feeling his mood lift immediately. “Sergeant, can you make Mr. Garza here comfortable?” Hank asked, moving subtly to prevent Nick from charging into the office. It made Nick anxious to stand around waiting when Sean wanted to see him. He danced a from foot to foot while Wu lead the young Garza to an interview room.

            As soon as Wu was out of earshot, Hank grabbed Nick's arm and pulled him away from the nearest occupied desk. “Keep your cool man. Remember, you're cursed.”

            “I know, I know.”

            “Don't call him by his first name.”

            “I _know,”_ Nick repeated, getting agitated at the delay.

            “And try to keep the giant smiles to a minimum, right? We have dead bodies and a congressman who is going to be on our asses, so keep it cool.”

            “Hank – I'm not seven. I know how to behave in public,” Nick hissed crossly.

            “I'm not worried about you knowing _how_ ,” Hank muttered, but he didn't try to stop Nick when he pulled away and started across the bullpen for Sean's office.

            Remembering at the last minute to knock, Nick leaned into the office with Hank on his heels. “You wanted to see us, sir?” He received a jolt when the captain's visitor turned around and gave him a smile of greeting – Farley Colt.

            “Come in, Detectives. Have a seat.” Sean gestured to the other two chairs and Nick cautiously took the one furthest away from Farley. “You two may remember Mr. Colt from that case several months ago? The one with the jewelry store?”

            _You mean the coins_ , Nick thought, but he only nodded. Sean wouldn't want the incident brought up again, since he himself had succumbed to the coins' influence.

            “You may also remember that Mr. Colt is a private investigator? The Garza's have retained Mr. Colt's services in this matter. As a professional and personal courtesy, I would like to ask you to include him in your investigation as much as possible.” Sean looked especially at Nick and it made Nick warm with pleasure. He fought hard to keep a smile off his face and ended up just squirming in his chair. “I know it's a little unorthodox, but considering the nature of these murders, we are doing our best to cooperate.”

            This was all code for _yes, actually do keep this PI looped in_. Families sometimes hired PIs when they either felt that the department wasn't working hard enough on their case, or they just wanted loyal eyes on it who tell them things the cops wouldn't. If Sean had just said it was a professional courtesy, he would have actually meant to keep the man away from anything they wouldn't let the family have anyway, but since he added the personal courtesy in the mix, it meant that Sean was personally involved with the victim and wanted to do everything he could to keep them as calm and cooperative as possible. Nick wasn't sure how Sean knew the older Garza, but it made a coil of jealousy unravel in his gut. Maybe it wasn't the older Garza at all, maybe it was the younger Garza, now sitting in the interview room -

            “Detective Burkhardt?”

            Nick glanced up and realized that Sean had been speaking to him and he hadn't even listened. A swell of shame made him blush and look away from Sean's concerned face. He tried to remind himself that he didn't need to be ashamed, that it was the curse making him feel so strongly about any perceived disappointment, but he couldn't help it.

            “Sorry, sir.”

            “I know you've only had the case for a couple hours, but do you have any updates to share?” Sean repeated.

            “Nothing that you don't already know, sir,” Hank answered for him.

            “We have the congressman's nephew in an interview room, and we'll see if he can't give us somewhere to start.” Nick was sure he was imagining the flash of familiarity on Sean's face at the mention of the younger Garza, or maybe it was innocent – he obviously knew the congressman, so it made sense that he would be familiar with the congressman's family, wouldn't it?

            “That sounds like a good place to start. Give the media a few hours to calm down a bit and you can head over to the congressman's residence. Any other cases you're working on, hand them off- I want your full attention on this. Pull whatever resources you need.”

            “Understood, sir,” Nick and Hank intoned together.

            Sean gave them nods of dismissal and the three of them stood quickly. Sean was already bent over paperwork before they even made it out of the room.

            “Why do I get Mr. Colt caught up?” Nick suggested. He gestured toward the interview room with his chin. “Do you want to take Mr. Garza's statement?” He felt a boiling, unfounded jealousy rising in him the more he thought of the attractive young man, and wasn't sure what he'd do if he was put in a room with him. A very big part of him wanted to slam the balam against the wall and demand to know what his relationship to Sean was, and how dare he even have a relationship in the first place when Sean was _his?_

            “Sure, I'll take care of it,” Hank said, obviously trying hard not to look concerned. Nick nodded at him and then gestured for Farley to proceed him back to his desk. He was conscious of the man's curiosity, but ignored it. For the first time, he was hit with all the ways the curse could go wrong. Up to that point, he'd mostly just been happy, and his vision had focused on Sean so acutely that he had no attention to spare for anyone else. Now, his mind replayed every interaction he'd witnessed between Sean and someone else to see if there was the slightest chance that someone was stepping on his territory.

            And since when did Sean become _territory_?

            “Detective?” Farley prompted quietly when they made it back to the desks and Nick continued to stare off into space. 

            “Sorry.” Nick shook himself and turned his attention to the case. “Let me catch you up with as much as we know, which isn't much,” he warned. Farley nodded – they had personal matters to discuss, but the man was a professional and the personal talk would come later. Hopefully much later.

 

~*~

 

            The first days of any investigation were most often frustrating. Knowing that there was a killer walking around free while Nick was stuck talking to grieving family members and recalcitrant witness was nothing short of maddening. Even when they did gain a solid lead, even when Nick knew in his gut that he had the killer smirking across the table from him, he still had to go through the rat maze, pulling apart clues and tying them all together with the hope that the final product stood up in court. In many ways, being a Grimm was a lot easier – he didn't need a waffling jury with CSI syndrome to validate his case. Many of the things that made his job as a Grimm easier also made it more dangerous – as Nick walked out of Congressman Garza's home later that evening, he realized how easy it would be to abuse the power he had – the congressman knew who killed his sons, though close scrutiny meant they would have to wait to hear it from his nephew. Once Nick was pointed in the right direction, what was stopping him from hunting that creature down and taking their teeth for trophies? Worse, what was stopping him from hunting down every single creature that shared a similar ancestry just in case?

            “You want to pick up Monroe before we head to the younger Mr. Garza's apartment?” Hank asked as they got back into the car. Farley, who had been quiet for most of the day, perked up in curiosity from the back seat. “I'm assuming we're doing the rest of this without our badges out,” Hank continued.

            Nick smiled in equal parts relief and apology. He didn't know how he made the first six months of his life as a Grimm without Hank – and that was exactly what was stopping him from going on a murderous rampage. “Yeah, I'll shoot him a text and see if he can be ready.”

            “Monroe?” Farley asked.

            “The blutbad I mentioned,” Nick responded vaguely, paying more attention to his phone than the man in the backseat he still wasn't quite sure how to classify. He was sure Hank had noticed the tension between them, but he hadn't said anything yet. Considering everything, he was probably happy that Nick's attention was directed at someone other than Sean, regardless of how temporary that might be.

            Monroe met them in the driveway with a bag of wrapped sandwiches made on fresh bread still warm from the oven.

            “Thought you guys might not have eaten,” he said, handing them out. Nick wasn't surprised that Monroe had one on hand for Farley, and even less surprised when the blutbad intentionally put himself in the steinadler's space and kept a not-at-all subtle suspicious look on him.

            Rather than being offended, Farley smiled at Monroe's behavior and seemed genuinely amused. He thanked Monroe for the sandwich and complimented his cooking, and then commented on Monroe's very nice wristwatch. Nick snorted as Monroe lost all menace and launched into an excited diatribe on his 1940 Good Swiss Vacheron and Constantin wristwatch with the teardrop gold lugs, and could Farley even believe that he'd found it at a _yard sell_? Sheesh, people didn't understand the value of things anymore!

            Nick watched them in the rear view mirror, half amused at Farley's expert manipulation and half frightened of the alarming speed with which the man latched onto Monroe's soft spot. Or was it alarming speed at all? Perhaps Farley had been watching him, knew where he lived, and did his research on Monroe?

            “You okay, man?” Hank asked quietly under the excited babble of Monroe's voice and Farley's occasional encouraging comment.

            “Yeah, just... not a great day.” His gut told him that Farley was trustworthy, but he didn't want to share his fears about the curse in front of the other man all the same. Hank nodded to show understanding and turned his focus back to the road, taking another bite of his sandwich as they went.

 

~*~

 

            Garza answered the door in a pair of green scrubs. He glanced over the group standing in the hallway and then stepped back to invite them in. Seeing their attention on his scrubs, he explained, “I'm a nurse at Legacy Emmanuel. I just got home from a partial shift – got someone to cover for me this evening, considering...” his voice trailed off and he closed the door behind Farley. The wesen all went through a quick woge in what Nick thought of as the wesen handshake, and indeed, Garza only offered his hand to Nick and Hank, and neither Farley nor Monroe seemed to expect anything else.

            “An interesting group you've put together,” Garza commented, ushering them all towards the living room. He had a comfortable, trendy apartment, painted in a pumpkin orange and an unexpectedly complimentary lime green, with living plants and South American artwork decorating the space. The apartment was small, but probably cost as much as Nick and Juliette's mortgage. He guessed the money was more likely from the family than his position as a nurse, but didn't say anything.

            “Can I get anyone a drink? Water? Tea?” Garza offered politely, but only out of reflex. They all declined and took seats around the living room. “So... we have a kherseit-slicht-kennen, a blutbad, and a steinadler. You make strange friends, Grimm.”

            “You're the balam with all the aforementioned in your living room,” Monroe pointed out.

            Garza tipped his head to concede the point. “I understand that you've already spoken with my aunt and uncle and their daughters?”

            Speaking with Mrs. Garza had been like talking to a statue, she just stared out over their shoulders and mumbled answers that often had no relation to the question. The congressman's daughters had not been much more help, the youngest being only seven and the eldest twelve, called home from boarding school. Hector Garza's oldest son, Hector Jr, was out of the country.

            “Yes,” Hank confirmed. Nick sat back in his seat, and with a tip of the head signaled to his partner to take over the questioning. They knew each other well enough that Hank didn't even hesitate. He went through all the standard questions that they would be able to put into a report, questions they'd already covered with Quaili Garza earlier in the day, but re-questioning was an important part of the investigation process.

            “You implied earlier this morning that this might not relate to the kind of connections a... kherseit could investigate?” Hank asked finally once he exhausted all the usual questions and Garza tiredly gave the same answers he'd provided that morning.

            Sitting up straighter, Garza nodded. “Yes.” He took a slow breath and shook his head. “My uncle is a very proud man, and, as you can imagine, an ambitious man. He would have told you these things himself, but with the increased security and the media attention, I convinced him that it might be better for me to impart this news to you. We know who killed Vincent and George.”

            Hank made a frustrated noise and shifted on the couch – that was never what any detective wanted to hear after a day of mind-numbing interviews trying to find any lead to that effect.

            “I'm sorry that I could not tell you earlier,” Garza said, “But there were far too many eyes and ears. Meeting you, a Grimm, here in my home...” Garza shrugged. “It is very likely that I will be killed for it. But I want my cousins' murderers brought down.”

            “We can place you in protective custody-” Hank started, but stopped when Garza waved him off.

            “No. I have engaged protection already in my world. Trust me, protective custody would do me no good.”

            In any other situation, Nick knew that Hank would have protested, but as quickly as his friend was catching onto the wesen world, he was still woefully out of his depth. He hadn't noticed the three wesen they passed in the hall, no doubt part of Garza's protection, but Nick and Farley certainly did, and likely Monroe as well.

            “Alright. So who killed your cousins?”

            “My uncle...” Garza closed his eyes for a moment and took another breath. “My uncle accepted campaign funds from a consortium of wesen, mostly schakal.”

            Monroe whistled. “Schakal?”

            “And when you say 'consortium'...” Hank prompted, holding a hand out, “You mean...”

            “Gang. Mob.” Garza shrugged uncomfortably, face carefully blank.

            “And now they want something from him,” Monroe summarized. “Something he didn't give them.”

            “Yes. They didn't spell out who they were or what they would want when they gave him the funds, but my uncle is not a stupid man. He knew the money came with strings – but all so-called donations to political campaigns come with strings. He could not have known that his family was being put up as collateral against future favors.”

            “Sounds like the kind of thing he could have guessed would be on the table,” Farley chastised softly.

            Garza's face flushed briefly in anger, but his expression twisted several times and then fell again. “Yes, he should have. He thought that the favor would be the same kinds of favors that everyone wants from a politician – a word in the right ear, support for a bill, endorsement of a political agenda. Things that any politician worth their campaign funds can do without doing. He didn't think that the price for his campaign would be state secrets.”

            Farley's attention sharpened. “What sort of state secrets?”

            “Secrets so secret that he wouldn't even tell me what they wanted. But he refused, tried to reason with them. Last night Vincent and George went out with their bodyguard and none of them returned. The guard was reported missing – a coyotl. We would like to think that he didn't have anything to do with it, but no one has seen him since he took the boys out last night.”

            “Has this consortium contacted you or the congressman since this morning?”

            Garza nodded. “Not me, my uncle. If he does not deliver the items they want by tomorrow night, the lives of his wife and daughters have been threatened. If he still refuses, they say they will hang Hector, Jr. from the Eiffel Tower, and if he still refuses, they will start on his nieces, nephews, brothers... his wife's family.” Garza's attention turned to Nick for the first time. “My uncle has made a terrible mistake, and he understands that you may choose to punish him for his part in this, but I ask you to please not let this continue. Even for the love of his family, my uncle will not give these men what they want.”

            Nick most often found it to his benefit to quickly reassure anxious wesen that he was not the typical beheading-happy Grimm. Sometimes, he found it more beneficial to just stay quiet and let them draw their own conclusions if it would make them more cooperative, and every now and then, he liked to remind them that he _did_ have a battleax that would work very well for beheading, thankyouverymuch. Nick stared silently at Garza, looking for the slightest sign of deception, the smallest hint that the man was not giving him the whole story. He was having trouble thinking clearly though. He tried to reason out what he would have done before he was cursed through the snarling jealousy that took a bite out of his gut every time he looked at the young nurse.

            After several tense seconds, Nick leaned forward and put one hand on Garza's arm. “I will track these creatures down, and I will take care of this,” he promised, shoving the jealousy away. Garza took a deep breath and let it out in a whoosh. He leaned forward, visibly shaken, and covered his face with both hands. The sight of him shaking in relief made Nick feel instantly guilty. This man had lost two young members of his family and probably spent the entire day twisted in fear that Nick would refuse to help them, or, worse, decide to just kill the congressman and run around the entire complicated business. In theory, if the congressman was dead the consortium would have no further reason to draw heat to themselves by picking off his family – no one would be able to give them what they wanted.

            Nick was even more ashamed that he thought about it all, even if he wouldn't go that route. Only when he relaxed his face did he realize that he'd been holding his expression in a dark glare, probably for the entire interview, and all because he was irrationally jealous of the younger man. He moved forward until he was perched on the edge of the chair and could reach the balam. Nick took his hands in a gentle grip and pulled them away from Garza's face. The nurse looked up at him with tears in his eyes, and in the next breath was on his knees at Nick's feet, clasping both of Nick's hands between his and pressing his lips to Nick's palms.

            “Whatever you want, anything you need, I'll give it to you. Just don't let my family die for this,” he pleaded into Nick's hands.

            Startled, Nick froze. He looked over at Hank, who was watching the unusual scene with wide eyes. Monroe only shrugged, as much as at a loss as Nick, but Farley made a significant gesture towards the balam. Hesitantly, Nick curled his fingers so his hands rested on either side of Garza's face, and urged the younger man to look up at him.

            “I don't need bribes to do my job,” he said, and tried to make his expression reassuring. “As a cop or a Grimm. This _is_ my job,” he said firmly. “To protect. Wesen and human alike.”

            “I didn't believe the stories,” Garza confessed on a sob.

            “Most don't at first,” Nick confirmed with something like a smile. “Just tell us everything you know – everything your uncle has told you or that you can remember, names, faces, places. Anything could help us track them down and put a stop to this.”

            Garza nodded quickly, but he remained on his knees, breathing heavily, hands still curled around Nick's wrists, holding Nick's hands to his face.

            “Do you need a minute?” Farley asked after a moment of this, voice soft and compassionate.

            Finally releasing his grip on Nick's arms, Garza nodded and rose to his feet with enviable grace. He excused himself to the bathroom and a moment later they heard the sink turn on. Nick locked eyes with Farley and nodded his thanks – the steinadler was proving unexpectedly useful. Farley nodded back and gave Nick an encouraging pat on the arm.

            “I'm sorry for that display,” Garza said with a self-depreciating smile as he came back into the room, his face and the collar of his scrubs damp. “I confess I honestly expected to die tonight, or to know that our conversation brought my uncle's death.”

            “Well... spread the word. I'm not that kind of Grimm. Or at least,” Nick added, because having some wesen afraid of him was a good thing, “Not to the innocent.”

            Garza gave him a grateful look and a nod of understanding, and then settled in to tell them what he knew of the consortium.

 

~*~

 

            “Can I take you to your hotel, Mr. Colt? Or back to your car?” Hank asked when they pulled up in front of Monroe's house.

            Farley hesitated, clearly on the verge of pushing for that personal conversation, but he finally settled into his seat and nodded in gratitude. “Sure, thanks.”

            Nick was grateful for his friend all over again. He was too drained to deal with anything other than case and wanted to put off the inevitable talk with Farley for another few hours. He was quiet as Monroe let them in, but he stopped by the door when Monroe turned towards his bedroom.

            “Monroe?”

            Turning back around, Monroe waited for him to continue, head cocked.

            “I think this curse is getting worse.” Nick shifted his weight and ran a hand through his hair. “The last two months, I've been able to convince myself that it was harmless, and I've really just felt... happy. But today? It's... I _know_ that my behavior is strange, I know it's not normal to be so happy to see my boss, and it's not normal to be so happy all the time period, and it's not even normal to be as healthy and strong as I've been. And even when I'm thinking, or saying, or doing something strange, I _know_ that. But I just didn't really think it was anything to worry about. Today... I have a case on my hands that could lead to a whole family's death, and I spent all day stewing in jealousy over _Garza_. He's worried about his family, and sitting across from a Grimm he believes will kill him, and all I can do is try to figure out if he's interested in Sean and if they've ever had sex.”

            Monroe's head jerked back, startled. “What made you think that?”

            “ _Nothing,_ a glance of recognition from Sean, knowing that Sean is friends with the congressman, and my head just started to put together all these scenarios – Garza is young and attractive, and obviously he would know Sean, and what if Sean is attracted to him? What if they've slept together?” Nick had to stop and take a deep breath. Even aware of what he was doing, the thought made sick jealousy swirl in his stomach. “I had to ask Hank to the interview alone this morning because I really wasn't sure what I was going to do.” Nick looked up at Monroe, wanting him to have an answer, to be able to give Nick some piece of advice or point out something that was (to Monroe) obvious, the way he did with so many of Nick's problems.

            “We're doing everything we can,” Monroe said instead, looking concerned and not confident.

            “While I'm still in my right mind, I'm giving you permission – no, I'm _begging_ you – if I get dangerous to Sean or anyone else... Do whatever you need to do.”

            “Nick, man...”

            “I mean it, Monroe. I like to think I'm just a normal guy who happens to be able to see things not everyone can, but that's not really true. I don't want to think about the kind of damage I could do if I lose control of this.”

            Looking sick and unhappy, Monroe nodded. “I promise. But it won't be necessary, because we are going to figure this out.”

            The reassurance felt weak to Nick, but he nodded. “Night, Monroe.”

            “Sleep well, Nick.”

~*~

 

            Farley kept very still on the top of the wall. The night was moonless and the yard black as pitch from the wall all the way up to the back deck. The house itself was lit up inside and out, probably every single light in the compact mansion on to make it more visible, while exterior lights highlighted the architecture. He'd been crouched on the wall right next to the security camera for better than an hour, watching the movement of antsy security pacing the yard in dark fatigues, carrying assault weapons strapped to their chests, white wires dangling from their ears. On any normal evening, they'd probably be bored, wandering a well-worn path, chatting with each other over the comms, but it wasn't every evening that the boss' whole family had outstanding death threats.

            It was a real risk to stay on the wall. Many, if not all, of the security personnel were wesen, and he would bet they were the sharp-sensed predators like blutbads and coyotles. He'd been hired by the family and could have walked up to the front door and notified the security team that he would be on the premises, but half the point of his impromptu steak out was to assess the security team. Even hyper tense from the morning's tragedy, they were not as observant as he would have hopped. Of course, if he was wrong and one of them was sharper than he suspected, he might get a bullet in the chest before he had time to explain that he was on the payroll.

            The corner he chose was shielded from behind by thick trees, and he knew he was all but invisible in his dark gray clothing, sitting still against the backdrop of darkness. It took him only minutes to realize that none of the other cameras would be able to see this particular camera, and all he had to do was perch on top of it to stay invisible to the security system. The camera made a whirring noise when it turned, so he would have more than enough warning if someone thought to the swivel the camera around.

            One-by-one, the lights on the upper floors clicked out. Farley tracked them automatically, keen eyes taking in the details of each room. This room darkened by a maid, the next a young girl closing the curtains. Next to her room, her older sister sat at her vanity and wept. On the top floor, small and designed like a penthouse, the congressman stood helplessly behind his wife, who stared out the window with her face a mask of shock and misery. Her eyes rested on Farley's hiding place, but she didn't give so much of a twitch of recognition. Farley probably could have stood up and waved a flag at her and she wouldn't have noticed.

            Lights began to turn out through the rest of the house, though the bottom floor remained lit. Maids and cooks streamed out of the house and around to the parking lot. A whole line of cars left moments later, while another small line came in the other direction. Farley made a disapproving face – having people coming and leaving at the same time was one of the all-time biggest and most commonly made mistakes from a security standpoint. At least they had two guards at the gates, one watching either direction.

            The incoming cars appeared to contain the guard change, and they moved out of Farley's sight with an unusual amount of urgency. He could bet that most of them didn't want to be there and hadn't called in sick only because it would definitely mean their jobs if they did. Farley turned his head slowly to survey the property, moving smoothly when the camera let out a soft squeak and started to shift. The camera made a partial rotation towards the entrance and then turned back around. He kept his eyes on the darkened side of the house, where landscaping cast a deep shadow from the porch to the side fence. Sure enough, a shadow detached itself from the greater darkness, slid into place next to the house and stood unmoving, perfectly visible for the moment to anyone who looked in his direction. Indeed, a pair of guards walked past the still figure within twenty yards and didn't notice anything strange. As soon as the pair passed, the shadow turned to the house and scaled the wall with all the grace of a squirrel.

            Farley cursed quietly as the shadow clung to the siding at the youngest girl's room. He couldn't see from his angle, but he guessed there was another window into her room. With barely a pause for breath, the figure slid out of sight. A second later, a deeper shadow passed in front of the visible window, disappeared out of sight for a moment, and then a larger shadow passed the window going back. The figure was out the window with the little girl wrapped in a dark blanket and tied to his back seconds later. From first grabbing the wall to sliding back into the trees, less than three minutes had passed. Alerting the security team was useless, so Farley abandoned his position by the camera and dropped down on the outside of the fence. He ran silently along the edge and barely made it around the corner in time to see the dark-clad figure closing the trunk and getting casually into the driver's seat. Farley memorized the license plate, for all the good it was likely to do, and then took in every detail of the car and the driver that he could. The driver started the car, took a moment to adjust his mirrors and -there! Farley caught a glimpse in the rear view mirror of a tanned face, dark hair cut close to the scalp, early thirties, a scar on the left-side of his face.

            Taking his time, the kidnapper pulled away from the curb, drove sedately down the street, and even had the presence of mind to put on his turn signal at the stop sign. He turned right and Farley lost sight of the sedan.

            Moving with the same nonchalant grace, Farley slipped across the street, down an alley between two houses, and to the nondescript rental car he had parked in a vacant driveway. As soon as he had the door closed, he pulled out his phone and dialed Nick first, and then the Garza's head of security as soon as he was sure the Grimm was awake.

 

~*~

 

            They stood in Angelica's room. In the hallway, they could hear the congressman screaming himself hoarse at his security team. Farley blocked it out and examined the window. It had an alarm, but the kidnapper had bypassed it neatly by cutting the window away from the sensor, so the two parts never separated.

            “So he just... climbed the outside wall, ran across to this side of the house, climbed _this_ wall, cut himself into the room, and made off with a little girl without anyone seeing or hearing _anything_?” Hank clarified.

            “I saw,” Farley countered absently, pushing the window open and glancing down. Rather than sliding up, the window had two panels that opened out, all of which made the kidnapper's job that much easier.

            “Right. And why did you see?” Nick asked, speaking for the first time since they'd arrived. “What were you doing just waiting around?”

            “I'm not under your command, Nick. I've been hired by the family to track down those responsible for their sons' murder. If _I_ was going strike fear into the heart of the congressman, I would certainly take a child right out from under his nose. And if I was going to take a child from under his nose, I would take the youngest daughter. And if I was going to take the youngest daughter, I would have done exactly like Frank Neves did. So I saw because I was looking for it.”

            “Frank Neves?” Hank froze beside the better, where he had crouched down to look underneath. “You knew who it was? Did you know he was planning this?”

            Farley pulled himself back into the room and shook his head, not concerned by the suspicion. “No, I recognized him after the fact. He used to be one of the good guys, and we served together. After we got out of the military, we were both tapped for the CIA. Frank didn't last long before he went rogue – he's been working as a mercenary ever since, and he's one of the best for this kind of quiet grab, for terror tactics. He could have taken that girl at any point today, but he chose to do so right in sight of the security, one floor away from the congressman.”

            “You don't seem as concerned about this as we are!” Hank got back to his feet and grabbed his phone, stepping into the hallway to call the name in to the station and get people looking for him.

            “They won't find anything. Frank is a spook's spook. If he doesn't want to be found, he could park himself in your captain's office and no one would see him.”

            Nick's face blanched and he took an unsteady step back. “In the captain's.... you don't think he would be going there, do you?”

            Farley blinked at him and frowned, head tipping to the side. “No. Just making a point.” Nick nodded shakily, but didn't say anything else, his eyes still distant. Calling it a strange reaction would require Farley to know Nick a lot better than he did, but it still struck him as odd. He filed it away.

            “The good news,” Farley continued when Hank came back into the room, “Is that Frank does not hurt children. He'd put a bullet in any of us and not miss a minute's sleep, but would never kill a child. So whatever is going on here, it's unlikely that we're going to be finding Miss Angelica's corpse in the morning.”

            “So he wouldn't hand her over to someone who _would_ hurt her?” Nick prompted, eyes again focused and narrowed on Farley.

            Farley hesitated. “I would like to say no, but I can't with confidence. It has been a long time since I knew him well. He won't kill her himself though, _that_ I would stake the farm on.”

            Nick considered the situation for a moment and then nodded. They turned as one to leave the room, Frank having left them precious little by way of evidence- only a note on her pillow that read _We can reach you here,_ and a cloth placed neatly below it smelling of chloroform. Hank was out the door first, but backed in again a second later, causing a bottleneck at the door while Nick and Farley moved out of the way. Sean Renard stalked in moments later with a face like a thundercloud, and the head of security following miserably behind him.

            “Mr. Colt. You witnessed this?”

            Farley nodded. “I was watching from the perimeter.”

            The head of the Garza's security, an Agent Perichord, turned a wrathful gaze on Farley. “And what, exactly, were you doing there?” he demanded, turning all his frustration and rage on Farley. He was so beside himself that he didn't even see the dark look the captain turned on him.

            “Assessing your team, watching for exactly this kind of move.” Farley wanted to smile at the man for thinking he could intimidate someone like him, but he kept his expression easily neutral. “Captain, the man you're looking for is a former CIA operative named Frank Neves, but I doubt you'll find him. However, if you'll kindly move out of the doorway, _I_ may be able to.”

            Agent Perichord opened his mouth, but Renard cut him off with a sharp gesture. “Detectives, accompany Mr. Colt. Find them. Go.” He stepped out of the way and Farley let Hank and Nick precede him, watching Nick carefully. A bad feeling settled in his stomach when he noticed the brush of Nick's hand on Renard's, a motion that could have looked accidental, except that Nick had plenty of room to make it out the door without the detour to make contact with the captain. Renard's face creased in a frown and that cinched Farley's suspicion. As soon as they had the case wrapped up, he was going to need to talk with Nick.


	11. Lullaby for Innocence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one is late!

Chapter Eleven:

Lullaby for Innocence

           

            Nick startled awake at the first trill of his ring tone, nearly falling off the couch as he scrambled for the phone. On the other couch, Hank snorted and jerked, mumbling incoherently. Nick squinted at the display, but couldn't make his eyes focus enough to read the name.

            “Burkhardt.”   

            “Nick, it's Farley. Get up.”

            Instantly more alert, Nick sat upright, already reaching for his gun even as he extended one foot to nudge Hank awake. They'd gone back to Hank's house somewhere around four in the morning, Farley correctly pointing out that they wouldn't be good to anyone asleep on their feet. Nick pulled the phone away briefly to read the time – 7:24.

            “Did you find him?”

            “No.” Farley's voice sounded distracted and echoed as if he were in a large, enclosed space. “But I found _her_. Are you ready for an address?”

            Nick made a snapping gesture to get Hank's attention and started rifling through the end table for a pen while Hank produced an old take-out receipt.

            “Go ahead.”

            Farley gave him GPS coordinates. Normally it would have irritated Nick, who knew the city backwards and forwards by cross streets, but certainly didn't have GPS coordinates stored in his head, but it was too much effort on too little sleep to be annoyed.

            “We're leaving now,” he told Hank instead. “Hope your GPS is working.”

            Hank was already at the door with his coat in one hand and Nick's in the other. “It is, but we need to stop and get caffeine or I will not make it more than three miles.”

            The captain and Congressman Garza were already at the unassuming vacant house when Nick and Hank arrived less than half an hour later. To their credit, the other two men beat them by a matter of seconds and the congressman was just running up the walk to sweep his crying little girl into his arms as Nick opened the passenger door. Farley stood at the front door, casual with his hands in his pockets, looking not out of the ordinary on the front porch of a suburban home.

            “Neves?” Sean asked as he strode up the walk, pausing only the length of a heartbeat to squeeze the congressman's shoulder supportively.

            Farley shook his head. “Gone well before I got here.” He jerked his chin toward the house.             Nick and Hank followed Sean into the darkened living room, and Nick had to fight down a powerful impulse to slip his hand into Sean's pocket for the closeness, to put a hand on the small of the taller man's back just to show support and take comfort from his solid presence. Nick paused on the square of linoleum that marked the entryway, ostensibly to let his eyes adjust to the darkness, but mostly because he needed to put Hank between him and Sean, needed to have distance between their bodies. As a vacant rental, the house was bare and had the peculiar unnerving quality of unused space, the animal understanding of a dwelling that lacked occupants.

            “Frank kept her in here.” Farley pushed one of the bedroom doors open and stepped out the way. Hank followed the captain in, but Nick stayed at the door and simply leaned around the frame. The small bedroom was painted pink and filled with all the things any little girl would love – a large pink and black striped beanbag in one corner, lamps with pink boas on the trim, a fourposter bed with a canopy, a vanity complete with little girl's perfume and play make up, soft toys on shelves, and a fluffy rug.

            “Interesting decorating scheme for a rental,” Sean commented. His voice was even, but Nick could tell without even looking at him that Sean was holding onto his temper by a thread.

            “And this didn't happen in an hour,” Farley pointed out.

            Sean sighed. “Detective Griffin, get on the phone to the station and have the records pulled for this property. It's most likely just a conveniently empty house, but I want to make sure that the owner and previous renters can't be tied into this.”

            Hank nodded and eased out past Nick and Farley, phone already to his ear.

            “Detective Burkhardt, step in here for a moment.”

            Nick didn't think getting any closer to Sean and a bed was a good idea, but he moved into the room, stepping carefully to avoid destroying any evidence. Sean handed him a pair of blue gloves and he took a step back to pull them on so he didn't lean in to breathe in Sean's spicy/earthy/musky scent.

            “Forensics will be here in a minute, but what do you make of this?” Sean asked, handing him a sheet of paper retrieved from a pink plastic table scattered with crayons.

            It was a child's crayon drawing. Crude, but unmistakably of a schakal, with a gaping toothy mouth and exaggerated claws, set incongruously on a background of cheerful green grass and a white house with blue trim.

            “Years of therapy?” Nick suggested, but he angled the picture so Farley could see it from his place by the door. He glanced back, and the steinadler nodded minutely.

 

~*~

 

            “The whole thing was just for kicks, just to prove they could!” Nick said, frothing over with rage and frustrated that he had no outlet to vent. He just barely stopped himself from kicking the door open, or tearing Monroe’s clocks off the wall.

            “But they made a critical error.” Farley, unnaturally calm, passed Nick into Monroe’s kitchen and unerringly to the cupboard with the coffee cups. Monroe's head came up and shoulders went back in instant offense, but Farley distracted him by handing him a baggie with a scrap of fabric the size of a man's palm inside.

            “My guess is that they hired Frank to take the girl, probably to hold her until they had what they wanted – no other reason to deck out the room like they did otherwise. But I'm guessing someone decided to drop in and change the plans, tried to take the girl from him, or maybe just kill her. Frank doesn't respond well to plans changing, and he has a soft spot for children. There were signs of a struggle in the back yard, and that was waiting for me when I got there, all wrapped up with my name on it.” Farley picked up the coffee pot and started filling cups while he talked.

            Monroe turned the scrap over, frowning at the dried brown stains on the other side. “Is that blood?”

            Farley nodded, splashing milk into his coffee and leaning back against the counter. “My anonymous tipper used a vocal modulator, but I would bet something pretty that it was Frank. As far as mercenaries go, he's got quite a code of ethics. Once he's accepted a job, his loyalty stays with his employer until the job is done. But if he's double crossed?” Farley shrugged. “Let's just say he doesn't take betrayal well. He was probably sitting outside the property to watch the girl until I got there, and he left that so we could track the bastard.”

            “He knows you're wesen?” Hank asked, looking speculatively at the piece of cloth in Monroe's hands.

            Farley nodded, blowing across the coffee.

            “And he's...?”

            “Kehrsiete-slicht-kennen.”

            Nick frowned. “Everything I've learned about steinadler says you have excellent sight but not an especially keen sense of smell. Why would he leave this for you?”

            Farley gave him a genuine smile that sparkled with mirth and something like pride. It made Nick feel strangely... good.

            “Good thing we have a blutbad on hand, isn't it?”

            “How would this Frank guy _know_ we a blutbad on hand?” Hank asked, frowning.

            Monroe's head came up again, eyes widening in alarm. “That is _very_ very good question.”

            Farley shrugged again. “I told you. He's a spook's spook.” He drew his cellphone out and twisted it between his fingers in illustration. “This is a burner. I picked it up yesterday, paid cash, made exactly three calls on it; twice to you and once to the Garza residence. Yet somehow, he had the number.”

            “Scary...” Monroe muttered. “Well... we best get to that house. I can't exactly pick out the man's scent trail from here.” He handed the baggie to Farley without breaking the seal and then rinsed out his coffee cup. “I'll get dressed.” Pausing next to the steinadler, he narrowed his eyes at the man. “And don't think that I'm going to forget how creepily comfortable you are in my kitchen.”

            Farley only smiled. Monroe huffed out a breath and left the room, leaving Nick, Hank, and Farley alone in an exhausted silence.

            “When we get this bastard, I guess we're not going to be turning him into a court of law?” Hank said after several minutes, still looking at the baggie with a piece of critical evidence. Nick followed his gaze and made an unhappy noise. They had no way of getting that evidence into the police's hands now, not when forensics had already done a thorough sweep of the house and surrounding property. The strip of bloody cloth in Farley's hand could tie the culprit to the kidnapping, and possibly the murder of those young boys, and maybe bring down the entire rest of the consortium. Yet, the police couldn't possibly track this man down as quickly as Monroe's nose.

            “I wouldn't worry about it,” Farley said calmly. He finished his coffee and crossed to the sink to wash his cup, taking the time to scrub the few dishes Monroe left there overnight.

            “Of course _you_ wouldn't.” Hank's lips pulled down into an annoyed grimace as he finished his own coffee, but opted to hold onto the cup rather than take it to Farley at the sink.

            “And you shouldn't either. I told you, Frank is not a good man to cross. There was a second strip of the cloth conveniently caught on a protruding nail on the back porch. If you get this schakal, you'll have all the evidence a kehrseite court of law could hope for – boot prints, the little girl's testimony, and a piece of bloody cloth putting him right on the porch. If you can’t convict him with that, you don’t deserve to have him.”

            Nick and Hank stared at his back until he turned around to look at them. Farley gave them a sympathetic look. “I don't envy you boys your position. Nick, I know how hard it is to walk that line between upholding justice and becoming a monster above the law. But you are not alone in this – you have people who care about you to help point out where that line is. And you both have more support in the wesen community than you know. It's not ever going to be easy knowing when to take something on as a cop, and when to take it as a Grimm, but don't give into the temptation to just throw your hands in the air and assume there is no room for compromise.”

            Nick remained quiet in the wake of Farley's speech, but Hank's shoulders relaxed and he crossed the kitchen to hand over his empty coffee cup. Farley took it without comment and washed it quickly, setting it in the drying rack just as Monroe came around the corner dressed in sturdy boots and his favorite tan jacket.

            “Shall we get this done?” the blutbad asked with a suspicious amount of cheeriness in his voice.

 

~*~

 

            “You're _sure_ he's in there?” Nick turned to Monroe and caught his gaze, holding it intently.

            Monroe made a flustered gesture. “As sure as I _can_ be. We're downwind and the scent is the strongest from that building.” He pointed at a rundown brick strip mall, with only a single tenacious smoke shop holding on while the rest of the spaces were empty. “And if I had to guess, probably that one there.” He pointed at the largest space occupying the short arm of the “L” that made up the center. Faded lettering on the facade suggested that it had once been a small grocery store. “But I can't really tell you for sure without getting right up to the door.”

            Nick hesitated, but nodded. They'd been alternately walking and driving for hours, Monroe hanging his head out the window to catch the schakal's scent as they made loops through the neighborhoods surrounding the house where the girl was found. It reminded Nick fondly of the first time he met Monroe, the blutbad driving like a maniac with his whole torso out the window. This time he'd at least convinced Monroe to let Hank do the driving.

            “Monroe, we can't have any trace evidence of you at the scene,” Hank said reluctantly.

            Monroe held his hands up. “No arguments here. I would rather not be tied to kidnapping and murder.” He looked at Nick pointedly. “Again.”

            Despite the situation, Nick grinned at him and winked. “Hey, without me jumping to conclusions, we would have never met,” he pointed out.

            “You two lovebirds can discuss this later.” Farley stretched his neck and tilted his head. “I hear movement from the grocery store. At least two.”

            “I'll stay with the car. If anyone escapes you, I can at least get the license plate and maybe follow them,” Monroe said in a whisper. Nick nodded and he backed down the little hill leading up to the shopping center.

            “I'm going to head around back.” Farley stood without waiting for agreement or protest from Nick or Hank.

            “Guess we're taking the front,” Hank muttered. “You said your aunt was going to marry that guy?” Hank shook his head. “Man, what a weird life you would have had.”

            Nick shrugged. He'd spent the occasional night between tracking down killer wesen and dealing with Peche's curse wondering what life would have been like with Farley, but he'd had precious little to go off of – now he could see that it would have been strange indeed. But maybe not in a bad way.

            They waited until Farley disappeared around the corner of the building and then drew their weapons and dashed up to the front of the old grocery store in a low duck walk. As they came to the front of the store, Nick could hear the sounds of a heated argument and was grateful for it. The two men were shouting at each other so loudly that Nick and Hank probably could have driven right up to the door without being noticed. The double glass doors were boarded up and locked, but they separated to try the windows and found that one of them had been rigged to look just as tightly boarded up as the rest, but the board was attached at only one corner and swung easily and soundlessly aside. They moved quietly, but the shouting match inside had devolved into a fist fight and neither of the suspects was paying the least attention to them.

            As they moved through abandoned check out stations, Nick caught a glimpse of Farley's bird eyes, partially shifted to give him better night vision. The eyes turned towards him, and Nick felt a shiver go down his back – in the murky darkness of the closed building, they looked like the eyes of a demon, a floating gaze without a body attached. Two blinks and Farley's eyes turned away, focusing instead on the two men barely visible in the glow of a pair of lamps set up at a card table between two empty shelves.

            Nick and Hank exchanged glances, gave Farley a second to position himself at the back of the aisle. Nick nodded, held up three fingers and they counted down together, three, two, one-

            “Portland PD, freeze!” Hank shouted in his booming authority voice as he stood over the partial wall they'd used for cover. Nick crept around the edge and kept low against the wall with his gun trained on the brawling schakals.

            “Shit-!”

            “-Fuck!”

            The two combatants scrambled away from each other, one coming directly at Nick, the other unknowingly running right into Farley's hands.

            “Stop where you are!” Nick shouted, standing when the man was less than ten yards from him. The startled schakal slipped and crashed into a shelving unit, tipping it over and going sprawling with it, cursing and snarling the whole way down. Nick was on him in a heartbeat with Hank at his shoulder, slipping around so he could put his gun on the suspect without having Nick in the line of fire. The schakal woged and went for Nick's throat, but Nick brought his sidearm up and whipped the butt of it across his left temple. The wesen dropped like a stone and Nick dragged him out of the wreckage of the shelf and cuffed him.

            “That was not as difficult as I thought it was going to be,” Hank said, sounding oddly disappointed.

            “These two are just lackeys.” Farley came around the corner at a sedate walk, propelling the second suspect in front of him. He had one of the schakal's arms twisted up behind his back and was pinching hard at the juncture of shoulder and neck to keep him from squirming away. The schakal alternately whimpered and cursed. “But I bet this gentlemen would be willing to tell you where to find his... manager.”

            “Fuck you, man!” The schakal snarled.

            Farley blinked, as if he'd forgotten he was holding the wesen, and then twisted his hand, drawing a high pitched squeal out of his prisoner. Nick dragged the unconscious schakal over where they could keep an eye on him. He took his gun back out and gestured for Farley to let the second man go. Farley gave an unconcerned facial shrug and released his grip, sending the schakal down to his knees.

            “You fuckin' broke my arm, asshole!”

            “You're going to have worse than a broken arm if you don't start paying attention,” Nick said, lowering his voice. He crouched down so he was face-to-face with the man, or rather, young man. He couldn't be more than twenty-four, skinny, tanned, and surly, with dark hair cut close at the sides and spiked up on top.

            Nick holstered his gun and grinned at the man's pinched look of what he probably thought was an intimidating glare, but looked more like a sulky teenager to Nick. “What's your name?”

            “Nunnya,” the schakal snapped very maturely.

            “Alright, Nunnya, look at me very closely.”

            “Fuck you.”

            Nick decided now was not one of those times to play that 'I'm-a-nice-Grimm-really' game. Instead, he tipped his chin, narrowed his eyes, and shoved his aura out like a shotgun blast. The schakal scurried back on his good arm, woging in surprise and dismay. As soon as his jackal eyes met Nick's, the man screamed in real fear, the scream turning into a yipping whine. Nick smiled again, showing off his teeth.

            “I always did want a schakal tooth necklace,” he said conversationally. “Haven't I always said that I wanted a schakal tooth necklace?” Nick glanced briefly up at Hank, who was watching the scene uncertainly, but recovered quickly.

            “I think I remember hearing you say something like that,” Hank said. Though Nick could tell that his friend was distinctly uncomfortable with the turn in events, a stranger wouldn't have noticed.

            “Fuuuuuuck me,” the schakal whimpered.

            “Sorry, kid, you're not my type. Now, let's try this again. What's your name?” Nick repeated.

            “Trevor! Shit, man, you're a cop, you can't just kill me!”

            “Oh, he's here as a cop,” Nick agreed, gesturing back towards Hank. “But me? I'm here for the fun of it.”

            “And the necklace,” Hank reminded him helpfully.

            The terrified look on the kid's face made him a little sick, but Nick grinned again. “And the necklace.”

            “Man, you gotta help me, you can't just let him... you're fucking cops!” Trevor looked up at Hank appealingly.

            “You know, I just remembered,” Hank said thoughtfully. “I had my eyes dilated this morning. I can hardly see anything.”

            “Oh, that's right. And that cold has really been messing with your hearing,” Nick prompted.

            “What was that? Sorry, I've been having some hearing problems lately!” Hank gamely responded.

            Nick turned back to Trevor. “Guess it's just you and me. Think I could get you stay woged?” He shuffled forward and Trevor shot backwards, running into Farley's legs and reaching up to clutch at the man's belt.

            “You're wesen! Are you just going to let him kill me?” Trevor pleaded. Without so much as a blink, Farley stepped away from him.

            “Well, I guess...” Hank said as Nick moved forward another step. “No, nevermind, I doubt this kid would do it anyway, and I know how much you want that necklace. Go ahead. I'll wait.” Hank holstered his service piece and leaned back against the half wall. Nick glanced back to see him looking sick, but determined.

            “What? I'll do it! Fuck, whatever it is, I'll do it! Just keeping this goddamn lunatic away from me!”

            “You'll tell us who killed Vincent and George Garza and give up the names of your bosses?” Hank asked, sounding surprised and uncertain.

            “No,” Nick said when Trevor balked. “I like my idea better.”

            “I did it!” Trevor shouted, moving back again and wrapping an arm around Farley's legs, as the obvious better option to Nick. “Me and James, we did it. At the river, with piano wire. And I'll tell you about the bosses, I swear! But me and brother, we get witness protection!” Trevor demanded, voice shaking. “And keep that crazy fucking Grimm away from me!”

            “Sorry, Nick, guess the necklace is going to have to wait.” Hank shrugged and took out his cuffs. “You are under arrest for murder, conspiracy to commit murder, kidnapping, treason, and probably a helluvalot more that I just haven't figured out yet,” Hank told Trevor as he cuffed the man's wrists. Trevor started to sob, breath hitching in panic.

            Nick made a big production of sighing in disappointment and standing, but his stomach gave a lurch of relief. He couldn't have kept the charade up much longer, and they were lucky to come across a pair of kids and not more experienced men who might not have fallen for Nick's bad-guy routine.

            Ten minutes later, Nick leaned back against Farley's rental car while Hank shoved the newly conscious James into the backseat with his shaken brother. Monroe had retreated down the street so neither of the boys could mention seeing a fourth man at the scene.

            “Thin line,” Nick said shakily.

            Farley nodded. “If you ever get tired of the police force, the CIA would take you in a heartbeat,” he added.

            Nick shuddered. “I'm not sure that's much of a compliment.”

            “As long as you never come to love it, Nick. As long as it makes you sick every time you have to lean on someone like that, you'll survive. You won't sleep well, but it will keep you on the right side of the line.”

            “Nick? You coming?” Hank called.

            Nick pushed away from Farley's car, but Farley stopped him with a gentle hand on the shoulder. “Can we talk tonight?”

            “It will be a long day of paperwork, and this isn't over yet, but...” Nick rubbed at the back of his neck and nodded. “Yeah. I'll call you.”

 

~*~

 

            Sean stepped into the observation room.  James McClury sat across from Detective Keely, miserably giving an account of his position in an organization he called The Consortium. Across the hall, his brother Trevor did the same. Both young men were exhausted, having been bombarded with questions by three different detectives for hours. Their stories coincided and they gave the same answers each time, so Sean was hopeful that it would stand up in court. Both boys had a lawyer at their side, but they were both apparently more motivated to give out information than to listen to their counselors. They'd already been promised witness protection in exchange for testimonies, so they had little to lose by being honest at this point.

            And they were both more afraid of Nick than they were of their own families.

            “Good work today, Detective,” Sean murmured. Nick twitched in surprise, turning to look at him. He gave Sean a brilliant smile that made Sean's stomach flutter unexpectedly each time he saw it. Sean had to tamp down his own smile in response, aware that Nick was under the influence of some curse and the smiles were not really for him.

            “Thanks, sir.”

            “We've already picked up a dozen members of this 'Consortium' and the US Marshals are on their way to take these two into custody.”

            Nick nodded, eyes following Sean's every tiny movement. Sean made it a point to keep the length of the room between them, doing his best to make it easier for Nick to fight whatever the curse was pushing him to do, and indeed, the man seemed to be struggling with an internal war, rocking forward as if to stand, and then pushing himself back into the seat.

            Sean hesitated, but then asked, “Is everything alright, Nick?”

            Nick looked briefly shocked and then smiled in sincere pleasure. “Of course. We just brought down a lot of bad guys. What’s not to be okay about?”

            “You seem tired lately,” Sean prompted. He was just on the edge of blurting everything out, telling Nick exactly who he was and _what_ he was, and that maybe he could help, they could work together. But Nick was vulnerable under the curse, and telling him now felt like a coward’s retreat; Nick probably couldn’t be angry with him even if he wanted to, and he would agree to whatever Sean suggested and be happy about it. Sean kept his mouth shut.

            “We’ve had a lot of bad cases lately,” Nick answered finally. He turned his eyes up to Sean’s face, expression relaxing, and then abruptly clouding over again. “I hope I’m not letting you down. I couldn’t – I just really hope you’re pleased with my work.”

            Sean considered his answer carefully before responding, “You’ve been doing an exemplary job lately, Detective.”

            Nick beamed happily, tension leaving his shoulders in a rush so sudden, Sean thought he was going to slide right out of his seat. Unable to ask any further questions without revealing too much, Sean suggested, “Why don't you head home and get some sleep? There's not much more you can do here today.” He couldn't help a smile as he added, “Keep knocking out cases like this, and you might end up with my desk.”

            Nick looked horrified at the prospect. His breath caught, his face drained of color, and his eyes went painfully wide. “I would never-!”

            Sean held up a hand, hiding his own alarm at Nick's near-panicked response. “Just a joke, Detective. You wouldn't want my desk anyway – far too much paperwork comes attached.” Deciding to leave it at that before he inadvertently made the situation worse, he reached for the door. “Get some sleep.”

            “Yes, Se-sir.”

            Sean noticed the slip, but was careful to keep his expression neutral as he shut the door. The station was full of people, so he couldn’t lean on the wall and massage his temples like he wanted to. Instead, Sean abandoned the room, giving Hank a nod of acknowledgment as they passed each other in the short hallway between interview rooms. He straightened his tie as he went and checked his watch. The congressman was in his office with his wife and eldest son when he opened the door. Hector stood quickly and held out both of his hands as a compromise to kneeling. Sean took the man's hands in his and offered Selena Garza an encouraging nod of greeting. He exchanged grips with Hector, Jr. as well and then took a seat at the desk, making a gesture for the others to return to their chairs.

            “We have the two men responsible for the deaths of your sons in custody, and they are being very cooperative with information. A dozen members of the Consortium have already been taken into custody, and we're working with offices in six other states to round up more.” Sean paused. This was information the Garzas already knew, but he needed the second to gather his thoughts. “We've already gotten several confessions out of those we've taken in to the tune of bribery.”

            Hector winced, but he nodded. “Yes, I knew this would come out. I'm prepared to take responsibility for my actions.”

            “Dad-!” his son protested, but Hector reached out and grabbed his wrist, effectively silencing him.

            “I could try to get around these allegations, and I have enough friends that I probably could,” the congressman said gently. “But I have lost two of my children to this mess, and nearly lost everything. I cannot continue to lie in the face of that. I will take responsibility for this, and I will testify against these men.”

            Sean nodded. He was pleased that he didn't have to order the congressman to do it, and it would mean more coming willingly in any event. “The press will be outside shortly. I'll have to arrest you,” Sean warned unhappily.

            Hector nodded and squeezed his wife's hand when she let out an anguished sob. “I understand.”

            Sean watched them in genuine regret. Not only had it been useful to him to have a member of his court in congress, but Hector had been a genuine force for good in the wesen community, and Sean would be sad to take that advocacy away. His mind was already shifting through the possibilities of how he could mitigate the damage, but there was precious little in the face of what would be nation-wide outrage. If Hector didn't resign on his own, the country would drive him out of his position. He would at least do the man the courtesy of not cuffing him in front of the cameras.

            After a moment, his gaze slid to Hector, Jr., full of fire and drive. He would have to consider that later, but at that moment he was just too tired for political machinations. He remembered Nick’s violent jumps between happy and scared and grew more concerned for the state of the curse. For a while, it seemed that the Grimm had things under control and Sean was convinced that they were able to break the curse. He was a fool, and a niggling suspicion dug under skin, whispering that he _knew_ what the curse was, and what he would have to do to break it.

 

~*~

 

            The air quality reminded him of the night Aunt Marie flipped his life upside-down. Nick turned a beer over in his hands and couldn't believe it had been nearly a year. Farley sat next to him, quiet, but radiating a kind of presence that meant Nick never forgot he was there.

            “Marie named me your guardian,” Farley said after a long stretch of silence.

            Nick looked over at him uncertainly and didn’t respond.

            “After the incident a few months ago, I settled in and her lawyer was finally able to track me down. She made me the executor of her will, and listed me as your guardian.”

            “What does that mean, exactly...?” Nick asked warily.

            Farley looked over at him with that surprisingly mischievous smile. “Nothing since you're not sixteen.” His face fell a moment later. “She also left me instructions to deliver you to a Grimm who would take you as an apprentice. A man who travels typically in Europe named Sven Sturlesson.”

            Nick froze with the bottle against his lips, bracing to move quickly, but Farley waved off his concern with a negligent gesture.

            “Of course I wouldn't take you to him. He's a monster among monsters, and would thank me with a smile and then behead me without breaking stride.”

            Nick digested all of this for several minutes, frowning at his beer and picking at the corner of the label. “She makes a wesen the executor of her will, names you as my guardian, and then expects you to hand me over to some... psychopath who would kill you as soon as you do?” The more he learned about his aunt, the more confused and horrified he became. He didn't understand how she could have possibly hid from him as much as she did. He was a little shit for a teenager, but that was to be expected, considering that he lost his parents on the cusp of puberty, and had to deal with that on top of a dawning realization that he spent a lot more time looking at the boys at school than the girls. So perhaps he could understand not realizing that her business trips to help other libraries update their systems were not business trips at all, but later? After he graduated and got his shit together, after he started police academy? Why hadn’t he put any of it together?

            How could he have not only missed her other life, but also missed the behavior that would have led to these kinds of decisions? She left him under the protection of a wesen prince so he would have a chance to be a good Grimm, but then spent her time traveling the West Coast and striking fear into the hearts of even the good wesen like Monroe and Bud. She'd been willing to defy her entire family and the whole of the wesen world to marry a steinadler, but not her sister's ghost to let the man raise her nephew?

            “And this...Sven Sturlesson, he doesn't know that she's...?”

            Farley shrugged. “As far as I know she didn't have anything in place to notify him except the letter I was supposed to deliver to him along with you. Considering that it's been almost a year and he hasn't shown up to collect you, I'm going to assume that he doesn't know.”

            Nick frowned. “Collect me?”

            “In the wesen world, an apprenticeship is still very much what it was a few hundred years ago. If she contracted him to teach you, he would own you until your apprenticeship was completed. And he would not have been gentle with you – he's well known as a training master for Grimms. Your mother trained under him after your grandfather died.” Farley shook his head. “She would have already had a healthy dose of wesen-hunting fanaticism ingrained by your grandfather to make the transition easier, but you? You probably would have spent the first six months of your apprenticeship chained up in a dungeon just so he could break you down.”

            Nick shuddered. “I can't believe she would want someone like that train me.”

            Setting his beer bottle down, Farley leaned back in the chair and let out a long breath. “I think your mother's death really... broke something inside of her. I never stopped loving her, but, Nick... she wasn't well.”

            Nick wanted immediately to defend his aunt, but he stopped himself and nodded. His aunt as _he_ knew her was worth defending, but he didn't know this strange woman who shared her face and name. They fell back into silence, listening to the slow chirrup of the crickets and looking over Monroe's back yard. Nick remembered Monroe hustling him out to the fence the first week he moved in and insisting that Nick go mark his territory. He hadn’t done anything like that since he was six, and for all that it was strange, it was also surprisingly thrilling.

            “I know you're not sixteen,” Farley said into that silence, yanking Nick's memory away from standing at the fence with his face flushed hotly in embarrassment as he pissed on the boards. He turned to look at the other man, but Farley's gaze stayed focused on the middle-distance. “But I would like to get to know you better, if you'll let me. I know you've been struggling to learn a lot this last year. I could help you.”

            “You want to be my dad?” Nick asked with some bite in his voice. He felt a pang of guilt when Farley winced, expression going neutral. “I'm sorry,” Nick apologized. “I don't really know what to think of you.”

            Farley shrugged. “Considering the number of people who'd like to get their hands on you, I guess I can appreciate you being suspicious of someone showing up out the blue, claiming a relationship that you know nothing about.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out a large envelope. “I brought these for you. I thought you might like to have them.”

            Nick set his bottle down and reached for the package. His mother's young face stared at him from the first picture, one arm around an equally young Aunt Marie, an imposing man standing behind them that must be his grandfather. He'd never seen the man before; Marie wasn't willing to talk about him, and she didn't keep pictures. Nick felt a pressure behind his eyes and shifted in his chair, clearing his throat in an effort to banish the unexpected swell of emotion. He leafed through the pictures – many of his mother, of Marie, all happy and smiling. He found several pictures of Farley as well, handsome in a military uniform, smiling with his arms around Marie at the beach, Marie looking beautiful and flushed with happiness.

            “That was the day I proposed,” Farley said quietly, voice far away, smiling in remembered joy. He reached into his collar and pulled up a chain with a pair of simple golden wedding rings. “It was the Fourth of July, we were in Florida. That night there was the most beautiful fireworks display, right on the beach, and I thought the whole world was mine.”

            Nick hesitantly offered the stack of pictures back to him. “You should keep these.”

            “No, please, hold onto them. I have others in storage that we can go through, if you like. She left everything with me when your mother died, so I'm guessing you don't have many of your baby pictures or photographs of your parents.”

            Nick shook his head. “Just one.”

            “Keep them.”

            “Thank you,” Nick said earnestly, but added just for good measure, “This doesn't mean I'm going to call you dad.”

            Farley laughed. “That would probably be a little strange anyway. Though maybe now is a good time to tell you that I've moved to Portland? Just got my PI license for Oregon and Washington, and I'm going to be looking at office space on Monday.”

            Not sure how to take the announcement, Nick just said, “Good luck.”

            A few more moments of quiet passed while Nick glanced through the photographs. He wished he _was_ sixteen and he could take the stack and lock himself into his bedroom, turn on some music, and just go through them rather than having to play host.

            “And this question probably won't win me much favor either, but... is there something going on with you and Sean Renard?”

            Nick’s head whipped up, and he didn't notice his aura flaring out until Farley woged, hissing. Nick forced himself to draw it back in and take a deep breath. That was not the way he needed to react to that question – with the way his behavior was going, he could be getting that question a lot.

            “No,” he said stubbornly, even though Farley could surely hear the un-truth in the denial.

            “Nick...”

            “ _No_.”

            Not in the least convinced, Farley made a visible effort to relax and excused himself a few minutes later. Nick didn’t call him back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am probably going to be on a little bit of hiatus with this for the next chapter. There is a major plot point in the next chapter that I've decided to change - that change will completely change the rest of the story, so please be patient with me. I will try to get the update up next week, but if I haven't gotten it figured out, it may be late. Thanks for sticking around!

**Author's Note:**

> Subscribe if you enjoyed it. I do respond to comments, so please feel free to let me know what you think. 
> 
> Come visit me at: http://lightshadowverisimilitude.tumblr.com/ for updates, etc.


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